ALVR: Steam crash or pitch black view in headset

[balintbarna]

Describe the bug

After connecting the headset to ALVR and launching SteamVR the view in the headset goes completely black. The VR view on the laptop screen shows SteamVR and the image moves correctly with the movement of the headset and controllers.

Steps To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Have Quest 2 (larger storage version) with ALVR app 20.11.1 (latest right now) installed
2. Have my system: https://codeberg.org/balint/nixos-configs#tuxedo
3. Open ALVR dashboard
4. Connect headset
5. Start SteamVR from ALVR
6. Enable SteamVR VR view to observe the corrrect image being generated
7. Look in the headset to see black

Expected behavior

VR views should show on the headset

Additional context

I tried adding ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR/bin/vrmonitor.sh %command% to SteamVR's launch settings as suggested in this comment but then SteamVR just ends up crashing every time the headset connects. I tried a couple of different settings in ALVR for resolution, refresh rate, encoding, sound, etc, but didn't try everything.

I realised that the ALVR version on my device is 20.11.1 but the one in nixpkgs unstable is 20.11.0 so I forked nixpkgs and bumped the version but the result was the exact same after adding my fork to my system flake and rebuild-switching.

My computer is a Tuxedo Pulse 14 Gen 4 laptop: AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, no dedicated GPU, no nvidia
My nixpkgs is nixos-24.11 with some packages - like ALVR - pulled from nixos-unstable. Steam should come from 24.11 so it should not have the issue the one on unstable has, unless I misunderstood what is in 24.11 now.

I haven't used ALVR on NixOS before so I don't have a version that worked that I could bisect between.

Metadata

• system: "x86_64-linux"
• host os: Linux 6.11.9-xanmod1, NixOS, 24.11 (Vicuna), 24.11.20241123.0c58267
• multi-user?: yes
• sandbox: yes
• version: nix-env (Nix) 2.24.10
• nixpkgs: /nix/store/fnbr9s78sy4islw83vsaf0hgf88hih5v-source

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@LuNeder

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[aboglioli]

I want to add that the error after adding ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR/bin/vrmonitor.sh %command% launch setting (as stated here in ALVR wiki) that I got is:

ERROR Encoder: cu->cuMemcpy2DAsync(&cpy, cuda_dev->stream) failed
ERROR Encoder:  -> CUDA_ERROR_INVALID_VALUE: invalid argument
ERROR Encoder: 
ERROR error in encoder thread: Failed to transfer Vulkan image to CUDA frame Generic error in an external library

If you Force Software encoder in Video settings, you can stream image.

It seems to be an error related to Nvidia drivers in my case.

• Nvidia drivers: 560.35.03
• CUDA: 12.6.
• Kernel: 6.11.10

[MFlossmann]

This is a known issue, see here.

Currently, hardware encoding doesn't work for nvidia drivers on the nixpkgs derivation. Try forcing software encoding.

[balintbarna]

I don't have nvidia drivers or hardware, not that I know of at least. Where did you see that error output? In ALVR log?

[balintbarna]

Also enabling both force software decoding and encoding didn't help, still crashes

[balintbarna]

20:59:45.687 INFO Initial socket buffer size: send: 130560B, recv: 131072B
20:59:45.709 INFO Initial socket buffer size: send: 212992B, recv: 212992B
20:59:45.709 INFO Set socket send buffer succeeded: 425984
20:59:45.709 INFO Set socket recv buffer succeeded: 425984
20:59:45.712 INFO Render Target: 4288 2336
20:59:45.712 INFO Refresh Rate: 72
20:59:45.713 INFO CEncoder::Run
20:59:45.713 INFO CEncoder Listening
20:59:45.726 INFO CEncoder client connected, pid 22049, cmdline /home/balint/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR/bin/linux64/vrcompositor
20:59:45.755 INFO Using Vulkan device AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV GFX1103_R1)
20:59:45.762 INFO Using device path /dev/dri/renderD128
20:59:45.813 WARNING Failed to set cursor to Default
20:59:45.813 WARNING Failed to set cursor to Text
20:59:45.880 INFO Client disconnected. Cause: Interrupted system call (os error 4)
20:59:45.880 INFO Client disconnected. Cause: Interrupted system call (os error 4)
20:59:45.893 WARNING Failed to set cursor to Text
20:59:45.894 WARNING Failed to set cursor to Default
20:59:46.690 INFO Server disconnected

[MFlossmann]

Ah, sorry. @aboglioli added their error message, which is the result of nvidia HW encoding currently not working. But that issue has nothing to do with what you're struggling with.

[LuNeder]

I tried adding ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR/bin/vrmonitor.sh %command% to SteamVR's launch settings as suggested in this comment but then SteamVR just ends up crashing every time the headset connects.

I have the same issue here. Been talking for a while in the nixos gaming Matrix channel, but haven’t been able to fix this.

Related to alvr-org/ALVR#2476. Back then a kernel update had fixed it, but then after a few days and a flake update it broke again.

[LuNeder]

I’d recommend changing the issue title tho. The black view without the vrmonitor launch args is a thing on ALVR.

The NixOS issue here is that ALVR shouldn’t crash when you add the vrmonitor launch args thing.

[Octelly]

Same issue on NixOS unstable trying to connect a Quest 1.

[benbot]

SteamVR seems to be all broken on nixos 😓

I'm able to connect my headset to alvr, but all I see is black in-headset and nothing on my monitor. no steamvr home window or anything.