I’m having a MacMini i7quadcore 16GB Sierra lastest build, Roon Server build 161. 32951 albums. When I’m playing I get numerous dropouts and sometimes stop playing. Bad sound quality. But if I restart the server everything is back to normal for the rest of the evening. But when I’m back next evening I need to restart again. Play from Nas to microruendu. I have changed switches and still the same result.
Regards
Harry
Hi @Harryup ----- Thank you for the report and my apologies for the troubles. I would like to get the ball rolling here and figure this issue out for you, but first I would like to make sure that you are comfortable with me making this PM a public thread.
Our thinking here, at Roon, is that if we keep these issues out in public the information on any potential fixes can be viewed by any user. So the next time someone encounters the same problem, the information will be readily available.
-Eric
Hello, I don’t mind making this a public thread at all.
Kind Regards
Harry
Thanks Harry (@Harryup) !
I see you’ve started giving us some details of your setup (MacMini i7 quadcore 16GB Sierra latest build, Roon Server build 161. 32951 albums) and a description of the issue you are running into 
This information is greatly appreciated!
Moving forward, there are various reasons why a user may be experiencing audio dropouts during playback (as seen in the provided link). Dropouts more times than not, usually point to some kind of performance or hardware issue. With this in mind, I would like to kindly ask you for the following:
Can you please expand a bit more on your setup description, as seen here. I would like to understand exactly what gear you are working with. The more detailed you can be, the better 
Please provide a description of your network configuration. How are your device communicating (WiFi, Ethernet, both)? What equipment is being used (routers, repeaters , extenders, powerline adaptors)?
Have you always experienced this issue or did this start to happening recently? If this is indeed, a recent observation can you think of any changes that may have been made to your setup or network (new gear, new networking hardware, OS updates, firmware / driver updates etc)?
Is this skipping issue present while playing a variety of audio codecs / bit rates OR is it more prominent to a specific codec / bit rate?
Can you think of any behaviors or patterns that causes this skipping to happen?
-Eric
Music stored in a ReadyNas 316 with WD Red 6TB discs. Server MacMini Late 2012 i7 16GB/1TB nothing else is running on that computer except for Sierra. Latest update of both server and OS. Connected to a new HP switch (changed an old one for test reasons). The player is a Micro Rendu connected to a Dac. All wired cat 6. I started with another MacMini i5 late 2014 8GB/1TB when the problem started about a month ago. Getting the same problem as “No audio device found” and no sound thread. The microRendu is gone at the bottom of the screen and no sound. Does not matter if I control the play from an iPad, the server or the MacMini connected to the preamp. I have also tried using the MacMini as an endpoint and same result.
Problem has increased but started about a month ago to become so often that it is ruining playing music sometimes.
Using most of the time Flac 16/44. Happens less often when I’m using Tidal but it do happens then as well.
I have switched cables, servers, switches and actually also the cable modem. Sometimes it’s worse but the only solution for the moment is to restart the server. And that helps for a almost a whole evening every time.
/Harry
And I have tested running from the MacMini connected to the preamp the JRiver 21 running the same music from the NAS and no flaws at all. No errors at all for a whole evening.
/Harry
Hi @Harryup ----- Thank you for sharing your observations with me as well as taking the time to answer my questions. I would like to propose the following tests to see if we trigger any changes in behavior here.
- Take an album that you know has been consistently having drop outs, copy it from the NAS to local storage and add it as a “test” watch folder and see if you still get drop outs.
- Connect your DAC directly to your MacMini and see if the dropouts are still present OR trying to play directly out of the Mac’s internal mixer to a pair of head phones plugged directly into the unit.
- Move your DB aside (using the instructions below) and create a new watch folder only containing a handful of albums that you are experiencing this issue with.
Roon_old
-Eric