After latest update - music file is loading slowly [Resolved - Flow Control Enabled On Managed Switch]

I’ve managed to narrow down the problem a little bit. My system is set up as follows:

I have a Synology DS1511 NAS that stores all my music. I run Roon on a Windows 10 PC and everything in my setup is connected by Ethernet cable to a switch which is connected to my router.

I have two devices in my network; a MicroRendu running on my main system and an Auralic Aries connected to an Ayre Codex DAC/Headphone amp. The main system with the MicroRendu is working fine but the Aries/Codex system stopped working a few days ago. I’ve tried to do a little bit of troubleshooting to refine the issue.

First I tried using a different DAC connected to the Aries. Same problem. Then I connected my Codex to a PC running JRiver and it worked fine. The problem is not with the Codex.

I also tried connecting my Codex directly to the PC running the Roon core with a USB cable but I haven’t been able to get this to work. I’ve never tried to use Roon this way before. Can you explain how to setup Roon with a DAC connected directly to the core? If I can get this to work I think I can eliminate Roon as the source of the problem.

I suspect the problem is related to the Aries but I powered everything down and ran the Aries setup routine again. It should be working but the problem persists.

You can see in this thread that more people are reporting the same problem. I solved the problem by doing a fresh install of Roon - and not updating to the latest 234 build (the problem came back after updating). With other words the problems must be related to the 234 build. I am waiting with the update until Roon has fixed the problem.

That’s interesting. I’m getting exactly the same behaviour as you but here’s the strange thing. As I mentioned in my previous post, I run two devices. A MicroRendu on my main system and an Auralic Aries connected to an Ayre Codex. The Aries/Codex combination is the one I’ve been having problems with but my MicroRendu on my main system is working fine. One difference between our MicroRendus is that I updated to the new 2.5 firmware last week.

Other than that I went through more or less the same actions as you did. Uninstalled Roon, downloaded and reinstalled. Even rebuilt the database rather than restore a backup. The problems persist.

Hi @yellowblue ---- Thank you for updating the thread with your work around, the feedback is appreciated and always welcomed.

By chance did you have a chance to test with bridge mode disengaged, prior to the reinstall? I am curious what the outcome was, if you had.

-Eric

@anon49565150 / @scott_mathews / @Stephen_Graham – Thank you all for your feedback and my sincere apologies for the troubles here.

If you haven’t provided the details of your setup already, may I very kindly ask you to please do so and furthermore, can you verify if you making use of the MicroRendu running in bridge mode?

-Eric

I did but it was on a different thread so I’ll repeat it here. I run Roon core on a Windows 10 PC and my music is stored on a Synology DS1511 NAS. I have two Roon endpoint devices. Everything is connected by Ethernet to a switch which is connected to my router. On my main system I’m using a MicroRendu (just updated last week to the new 2.5 firmware). The MR is working fine. My second endpoint is an Auralic Aries which feeds an Ayre Codex DAC/Headphone amp. This is the one I’m having problems with since the Build 234 update.

Router/Switch > Windows 10 PC as Roon Core in bridged mode > Aqvox switch > MicroRendu with 2.3 software > Iso Regen > Chord Dave. Only problems with 234 build

Hey @yellowblue – we can take a look at this, but my understanding is that the microRendu does not support bridged mode on Windows. As far as I know, running with a network set up this way isn’t something we test (or recommend) as part of our internal QA process.

It’s possible something isn’t working as expected here, which is why I’m going to discuss further with our QA team, but we should determine whether the issue is in fact that bridged mode isn’t working properly with the microRendu.

Have you you tried connecting the microRendu directly to the router switch? I think that’s probably the next step for troubleshooting this particular configuration.

The microRendu worked without problems in bridged mode on Windows until upgrading to 234 build. All those other users reporting the same problems - do they all use their units in bridged mode? I want to wait with the next step in troubleshooting until this point is clear.

Hi @Stephen_Graham ---- Thank you for following up with me and providing the requested feedback.

Just so I understand, ONLY when you are playing back to Aries + CodeX end point you are receiving this “music file is loading slowly” message in Roon, correct?

If you haven’t already, I would consider trying the following:

  1. Great first step here:

“I also tried connecting my Codex directly to the PC running the Roon core with a USB cable but I haven’t been able to get this to work. I’ve never tried to use Roon this way before. Can you explain how to setup Roon with a DAC connected directly to the core?”

If you are running headless, you should try setting up the Codex device from a Roon remote. You will want to navigate to the “audio” tab and then under the “connected to core” field you should see the device listed. If you are not running headless, the same procedure should work from the core machine, the only difference is that the information should be found under the “connected to this XXX” field.

  1. Can you try (temporarily of course) bypassing the switch and connecting the Aries directly to the router?

  2. Do you make the same observation (file loading slowly) when accessing locally stored content as opposed to media being pulled off the NAS?

-Eric

Just so I understand, ONLY when you are playing back to Aries + CodeX end point you are receiving this “music file is loading slowly” message in Roon, correct?

That’s correct.

If you haven’t already, I would consider trying the following:

1) Great first step here:

_ “I also tried connecting my Codex directly to the PC running the Roon core with a USB cable but I haven’t been able to get this to work. I’ve never tried to use Roon this way before. Can you explain how to setup Roon with a DAC connected directly to the core?”_

If you are running headless, you should try setting up the Codex device from a Roon remote. You will want to navigate to the “audio” tab and then under the “connected to core” field you should see the device listed. If you are not running headless, the same procedure should work from the core machine, the only difference is that the information should be found under the “connected to this XXX” field.

I did get this working. The issue was a driver that was required on the Roon Core PC for the Codex. Once I got that installed properly I could play using the USB cable direct from the Roon core PC without any issues.

  1. Can you try (temporarily of course) bypassing the switch and connecting the Aries directly to the router?

  2. Do you make the same observation (file loading slowly) when accessing locally stored content as opposed to media being pulled off the NAS?

Now I’m really confused. When I connect the Aries directly to the router it works properly. That makes absolutely no sense. The MicroRendu is connected to the same switch and works fine. I’ve also run diagnostics on the switch, tried a different port and even rebooted the switch. There’s nothing wrong with it but when I connect the Aries back to the switch it doesn’t work.

Hi @Stephen_Graham ---- Thank you for giving the proposed test a shot and sharing the observations you made during your testing.

Can you verify the make/model of the switch you are implementing in your setup?

-Eric

It’s a D-Link DGS-1210-20. I checked yesterday and it has the latest firmware installed.

I got a suggestion at CA:
Like several others, I tried the suggested workaround of adding a wi-fi adapter to the bridge. This adapter needs to be “enabled” in Windows, but not connected to the network in any way. just its presence seems to fix some issue with Windows.

I myself have not the time to try this just now. But maybe some other will try this?

Hi @Stephen_Graham ---- Thank you for the follow up and verifying that information for me.

If I am not mistaken the D-Link DGS-1210-20 is a managed switch and we have seen a few issues crop up with these devices in the past ( Example: #1, #2, #3). I would recommend enabling flow control on the switch, as we have seen it help other users in the past.

-Eric

I’ll try it but I don’t believe the switch is the problem. I’ve had this switch for all of time that I’ve used Roon and until last week I’ve never had a problem.

Maybe so, but it may not be coincidence that the latest build of Roon is now using TCP instead of UDP over the network. This change to the network protocol used in RAAT may have caused an issue with your switch.

I seem to have solved it for me (keeping fingers crossed that it holds)

After 234 update I too had the ‘slow file loading’ issue. uRendu was visible to Roon, but it did not play music, it starts plays for 1-2 seconds then skips to next track. I disabled all DSP and there is no upsampling. CPU load remains below 5%. I disabled the firewall and it made no difference. If I remove the Bridge, everything is back to normal and it plays fine. The error looked similar to the one below. I use windows 10 running core and my setup is a shown below.

Error:

My setup:

Workaround/solution:
With some help from Roon team and also some search on CA forum, I had to do a couple of things:

  1. Add the wireless adapter of my laptop to the bridge (though it is not connected to the network)
  2. Manually set the MAC address of the Microsoft bridge adapter. I had to do this as I realized, the MAC address for the bridge kept changing after restarts and it was hard for me to make my router assign a static IP.

Once I set the MAC address, I dial it into my Router’s DHCP settings and force it to assign the IP I had entered in my network properties.

I had the same problem with two different laptops and on both everything worked fine if I rolled back to previous version of Roon core. As counterintutive as it is, based on the things I tried, I still feel the underlying reason is likely how Windows implements bridging rather than anything to do with Roon.

My network setting:

Changing the MAC address:
Make sure it is different from other stuff on your LAN.

Disclaimer
I am no networking Guru, I just use Google Foo.

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Fair enough. I didn’t realize there was a change in protocol in this build. Anyway, I made the change on the switch to enable flow control and you were absolutely right. It works now. Thanks very much for your suggestion and all the help along the way.