Last weekend, I was playing Forefront with a big group of friends. The game was finally taken out of beta and v1.0 launched a few days ago, so I needed to reinstall it to make sure I didn’t encounter any weird bugs. Strangely, this led to more conflict; Suddenly, no one in the game could hear me, and nothing I did seemed to fix it.
It wasn’t until a friend reminded me about app permissions that I quit the game. Oh! The Meta Quest runs Android, which means each app must request permission for sensitive information like location, camera, and microphone. Sure enough, I went into Forefront’s app permissions, and it became like this No Allowed to do anything except play on my headset.
Once you realize that missing or incorrect permissions can cause crashes in your Meta Quest game, you are halfway to solving the problem. Most apps on Meta Quest will only need the microphone permission to function properly, but some other apps and games will also require the permission Mixed reality games will also require spatial data and camera permissions.
No matter what permissions the game might require, you can fix them all in one convenient place. Meta’s new Navigator UI makes some settings a little harder to find, but, ironically, requires fewer steps than the old UI to get where you want. Here’s how to find them:
1. While wearing your Meta Quest, press meta button on the right controller to bring up the navigator menu.
2. Find an app or game You want to change permissions on the library.
3. Then, point your cursor at the app hold down the trigger Until a menu appears.
4. Click settings From the pop-up menu.
5. Below Permissions tabTap any toggle enable permissions who are disabled.
After making the changes, everything should start working normally. It’s possible that some apps or games may require you to close and restart them, but permissions changes usually take effect immediately. If this doesn’t fix your issue, make sure voice chat is enabled, and the voice volume is not turned all the way down in your game’s Settings menu.
It’s annoying that the system doesn’t tell you when an app is requesting permission but you’ve previously denied it (or ignored it), but at least it’s easier to figure out if a permission issue is causing the problem. Happy gaming!
