Meta Quest 2 - Refurb Exchange Experience - how to fix "Unable to Connect to Your Headset"


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I bought a Meta Quest 2 second hand from a child who was bored of it. The Quest was in excellent condition but, after a few days use, it became clear that the physical volume up key was broken. There are lots of tips and trips for fixing this. One of which is factory resetting. I turned off the Quest, held volume down and power, and got into the factory reset screen. In order to confirm the reset, you need to press... Volume up!

The Oculus chat team were very helpful. They took me through basic troubleshooting and agreed it sounded like it was broken. After confirming the headset serial number and some other details, they sent me an RMA label which was valid for the next 30 days.

I packaged the Quest headset in the original box, taped it up, slapped the label on it and dropped it at a local DHL point. 48 hours later and it was delivered to the Czech offices of Meta. 12 hours later I got confirmation Oculus had accepted it as defective and, a couple of hours later, I got a shipping confirmation for the replacement from Ireland. The replacement was due a week after I handed over the defective unit. I thought that was pretty good going!

Then, the next day, I got a delivery notification and the refurb was in my hands that afternoon.

So, I handed it over on Tuesday, got the replacement on Saturday. Outstanding service!

But it didn't work. I couldn't get through initial set up. It wouldn't connect to the controllers and couldn't pair with the app

Unable to Connect to Your Headset We can't connect to your headset. Please try the troubleshooting steps below: - Make sure that your headset is powered on, Bluetooth is on and your phone is next to your headset. - Check that the headset screen is lit up. If it isn't, make sure that your headset is fully charged or connected to power and that your headset is powered on. - Try turning Bluetooth off and on again.

After a few days of bashing my head against a wall, I finally found a solution.

Instructions

  1. Download the latest firmware file
  2. Rename it update.zip
  3. Power off your Quest 2
  4. Hold Volume - and power until the device boots into a bootloader screen
  5. Using the Volume buttons, navigate to "Sideload Update" and then press power
  6. Connect your Q2 to your PC via the USB-C cable. Use the cable which came with the Q2 if possible
  7. Install the Android Debug Bridge (adb)
  8. If you're on Windows, move update.zip to the same folder as your adb installation.
  9. Run adb devices, you should see something like List of devices attached: 123456789 sideload
  10. Run adb sideload update.zip
  11. After a few minutes the file will have transferred and your Q2 will begin updating
  12. Once updated, you should be able to pair the app with the handset

If that doesn't work, ask Meta for a refund of their crappy product!


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3 thoughts on “Meta Quest 2 - Refurb Exchange Experience - how to fix "Unable to Connect to Your Headset"”

  1. John doe says:

    Meta won't return my RMA! This is the second time around! The first time FedEx stole my headset and second time around meta is ignoring All emails and said it's under investigation! Like how do u lose it!? This is the worst experience of my life! I invested over $600 into oculus and can't even get a return to work for me when their machine breaks!? How are they getting away with this?

    Reply
    1. @edent says:

      I am not Meta support. This is not the Meta support forum. I suggest you complain directly to Meta or to your credit card company.

      Reply

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