Facebook account bans are making some Oculus Quest 2's unplayable

What you need to know

• Some players are getting their Facebook accounts banned after being falsely identified as fake accounts.
• Banned Facebook accounts cannot be signed into, making the Oculus Quest 2 unplayable.
• Facebook says they are working on the problem, which is a temporary issue, and to contact customer service to help resolve it.

The Oculus Quest 2 is an amazing piece of hardware with some killer games, but some players seem to have run into a huge snag. It seems that some new players purchasing an Oculus Quest 2 don't yet have Facebook accounts. Upon signing up for an account and linking their existing account, Facebook's automated systems are marking these accounts as "fake identities", thus banning them in the process. But it's not just that players are unable to join multiplayer sessions or purchase content from the Oculus Store — they're not able to use their shiny new Quest 2 at all.

Right now, Facebook is directing all affected customers to their customer support portal to submit a support ticket and have a human deal with the issue. If you're one of the affected folks, be sure to get that ticket submitted ASAP to get your issue addressed. Official Facebook response on the issue points to this being a temporary error in its system rather than an orchestrated effort to shut out some users. We've been in communication with Facebook on this issue and will continue to provide updates as they become available.

Because of the way Facebook designed the latest Oculus software, players have to log in with a Facebook account before being able to play on the Oculus Quest or Quest 2. If you can't log in, you can't use the Quest; it's as simple as that. While this is a big enough problem in and of itself for brand new players, existing players with Oculus accounts are finding themselves unable to even access games and apps they bought in the past, even if they've been Oculus customers for years.

While Facebook's customer service team seems to be able to handle some of the requests with a quick resolution, other customers are still facing lockouts and are stuck with what they describe as a "paperweight" instead of a usable Oculus Quest 2. One reader we've been in contact with had his account flagged after running into a scammer on the Facebook marketplace. Other readers have said their accounts were flagged, most likely, due to the fact that they didn't have a Facebook account before getting an Oculus Quest 2. Hopefully, for all Oculus players, Facebook will be able to resolve these issues soon and provide all customers with a working resolution (and a working account).