Again: Sync problems from macOS to ROCK

Roon Software Discussion
1

I encounter the same issue posted by @Tekl last year, syncing my music library from a Mac to an Intel Nuc: files with special characters in their names always are deleted and synchronized again.

I wanted to try his solution, but have a question whether there might be a typo in his solution. He writes that the rsync-option --iconv=uft8-mac,utf8-mac solved his issue. I am wondering whether it is correct that the first parameter is uft8, the second utf8 (i.e., “t” and “f” in reverse order)? Or should both read “utf8-mac”? Of course, I could just simply give it a try, but my collection is large and takes several hours to synchronize…

Many thanks for any hint :folded_hands:

P.S.: I am actually surprised that this is an issue. I am running the latest MacOSX 26.3, and I thought that utf8-Mac only applies to very old versions of MacOS. Could it be that Apple Music still is based on the old character encoding scheme?

2

It was a typo. I don’t use it anymore, but I’ve found my old command:

caffeinate -i /usr/local/bin/rsync --iconv=UTF-8-MAC,UTF-8-MAC --archive --progress --prune-empty-dirs --human-readable --crtimes --times --xattrs --delete-during --stats --exclude=.DS_Store --exclude=._* --exclude=.* --exclude=*.m4p --exclude=*.itlp --exclude=*.mov --exclude=*.m4v --exclude=*.mp4 --exclude=*.txt ~/Music/Music/ /Volumes/Data/Storage/InternalStorage/Music/
3

Thanks @Tekl ! Do you have a different solution to sync AppleMusic to your Roon Nuc? In the meantime, I am experimenting with convmv to convert all filenames in my music library from NFD to NFC:

convmv -r -f utf8 -t utf8 --nfc (musiclibrary)

…but I am not sure yet, whether this will help to avoid the deletion and re-synchronisation of files with special characters when using rsync to a SMB-mounted volume.

4

I stopped using ROCK and started using DietPi. To sync the library, I used Carbon Copy Cloner. But since I disliked having a separate gadget to maintain that also uses more energy in my home, I no longer use my NUC. Since I listen to music on my MacBook most of the time, this is now my Roon Server. So it now directly indexes the music library. And I have multiple ways for listening. Since Roon is a power-intensive application on my devices, I frequently use alternative applications, such as Longplay or Albums. I still sync my Library to my iDevices. Roon ARC is not good for my use case (offline usage).

5

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and setup. I still appreciate that the roon server (Intel Nuc) links directly to the HiFi amplifiers (via LAN), the WiFi-coupled devices only serve as remote control. I fully agree that Roon Arc is not helpful, I also sync my library to my iDevices for much more comfortable offline usage.