1.6 losing control of Kef LS50W

Since upgrading to 1.6 I’m finding that a lot of times Roon will just randomly stop playing in the middle of songs. Please help

Latest Roon
Mac mini 2012
Mac OS 10.14.3
16gb ram
2tb SSD

Hello @blushska,

How are you KEFs connected to the network and how are they connected to each other? Can you verify if the same issue occurs when they are connected via Ethernet to your router and are in “cable mode” and connected via Ethernet links as a pair? Are you doing anything right before this issue occurs, any specific sequence of actions?

Thanks,
Noris

Hi Noris, FYI. The LS50W can only be used with an inter-speaker connecting cable.

It’s the Kef LSX that can operate without an inter-connecting cable.

Hello,

@Dan_Brown - Thanks for clarifying that, I tested out a pair of LSX and (mistakenly) thought the LS50Ws were operating with the same configuration in place.

@bluhska, can you please let me know your networking setup including the model/manufacturer of your router and any switches/range extender/powerline adapters you have in use? Is the behavior the same if the LS50s are connected directly to the Router? Does any specific sequence of actions trigger this behavior? Does it occur at certain times of the day or is it seemingly random?

Thanks,
Noris

Hi Noris, thanks for the reply.

I haven’t altered anything between updating 1.5 to 1.6, when it was working fine, hence my assumption that it was the culprit. But it could be anything, I guess. I use a Netgear D7000 router, and the speakers are connected via wifi. I’m not sure I have a long enough ethernet cable to see if it happens over ethernet.

There are no specific actions that trigger the event, often the music will simply stop. Visually, the app will show the song as still playing (the play/pause button will be configured as a pause, and the equaliser icon next to the track title will continue as though the song is being played), however, the music scrub bar will remain fixed and neither will the time continue counting.

My logs should indicate several of these frustrating occurrences in the past 48-72 hrs. In fact, one just occurred

Hello @bluhska,

Would it be possible to move the speakers closer to the router and verify if they have the same issue when connected via Ethernet? This will give us a good data point and will let us know which direction we should look in to narrow it down further.

As for the Netgear router you have, on our Networking Best Practices Guide, we have the Netgear R7000 listed as needing special settings applied and I’m wondering if the D7000 could need the same configuration. Can you please check to see if you can disable “Enable Smart Connect” on it and see if that changes anything here?

Thanks,
Noris

Hi Noris, thanks for the reply.

The speakers are approx 3-4m from the router. I don’t have any ethernet cables to check whether it has the same issue. I can try and find one, but I’m not buying one to test something that has recently begun occurring.

For the D7000 there is no ‘Enable Smart Connect’ option where the R7000 manual suggests it is.

Hi @bluhska,

Thanks for trying to locate the Smart Connect setting. Other than testing the speakers with an Ethernet cable, the other thing that we can do here is see if diagnostics can give us some insight as to where things may be going wrong. Can I please ask you to:

  1. Reproduce this issue once more and note the exact local time in your country (e.g. 9:44PM) that it next occurs at
  2. Manually send us the logs from your Roon Core using these instructions.

This might give us some more insight as to the exact failure mode but testing the speakers on Ethernet will provide a better test here in my opinion.

Thanks,
Noris

Hi @noris,

The most recent song played has produced the issue we are presently discussing. I have uploaded my logs to Google Drive, where should I email a link?

Furthermore, you might find earlier in the day a definite “Roon lost control of the device” which appears to occur when a song has been triggered to play, and then skipped to the middle without x time passing. I assume it’s a buffer thing but who knows. Definitely related to Roon/LS50W communication. I avoid doing this activity (playing a song, then attempting to skip into the middle immediately) to avoid this. It may be related, it may not. It’s not one that negatively affects my experience like the one I’ve raised here.

Hi @bluhska,

If you have the logs uploaded to Google Drive, you can either post them on this thread or send them to me as a shared google drive folder in a private message. Do you by any chance recall around what time this issue occurred so that I can take a closer look in that time-range?

Thanks,
Noris

I’m not sure of the exact time, but my guess is around 18:30.

I’m also not sure whether it is related, but Roon bloats quite often and quite heavily on my system, slowing down all apps, and requiring a restart.

Hi @bluhska,

Thanks for sending those log files over, I have asked QA to take a look and provide some analysis of them. I appreciate your patience until I hear back.

Thanks,
Noris

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