Exe crashing unless Oculus plugged in after load

It seems there is an issue establishing a connection between a UE4 packaged project and the/my OVRServer. When I compile an exe from the first person shooter example, the exe will nearly always crash as long as I have the oculus plugged in. If I unplug the Oculus display usb, the game will load and then I can plug in the Oculus and it will work. I’ve noticed with “HMD enable” set directly onbeginplay then I can sometimes hit alt+enter a couple of times and it occasionally will load. Any ideas? Am I doing something wrong? Is there some way of delaying any trying to enable the HMD until the game is fully loaded? I’ve also tried running the exe in admin mode and with -vr appended to the exe but no luck. Any help appreciated!

Unreal version: 4.12.5
Oculus CV1 - most up to date drivers
GTX980 graphics card

Thanks!

zip of 2 log files - textexe.log is the crashing one, other is the one that runs after plugging in oculus post load