Android remote app...connection lost

I am using the android Roon remote on my Google Pixel. I have noticed that it loses connection with the core quite often. It seems to happen when waking the phone up after the screen has gone dark. It always reconnects in short order, but I have noticed that sometimes music playback stops when the remote app is trying to reconnect.

Is this expected behavior?

Thanks for sharing your report with us, @Louis_Richardson!

So I can gain a little more insight into what may be happening here, may I kindly ask that you please provide a brief description of your current setup using this link as a guide.

Make sure to describe your network configuration/topology, including any networking hardware currently in use, so we can have a clear understanding of how your devices are communicating.

  • Are there any battery optimization settings enabled on your device?
  • Do you have any other remote devices you use? Do they experience the same behavior?
  • What version of Android is your device on? Is the latest version of the Roon app installed?

Thanks,
Dylan

Thanks for the response.

Core:
Roon Version 1.5, 64 bit (Roon Server)
on Windows 10

ASUS VivoPC VM42-S075V Mini Desktop Computer
1.4 GHz Intel Celeron Processor
4GB Ram
This is a dedicated machine

Music is stored on internal HDD

Collection is roughly 23,000 tracks

Netgear WNR350L router
Firmware is Tomato 1.28 (this is not the latest version)

Core is connected to router via ethernet

Google Pixel
running Android 8.1.0
running Roon 1.5 (32 bit)

no battery saving functions are turned on, except adaptive brightness

Basically, whenever the screen on the Google Pixel goes to sleep, I get a ā€œLost Connectionā€ message on the Roon app when I wake up the phone. Sometimes, I get the Roon start up screen again, and the Roon app has to restart. It always reconnects fairly quickly, but is kind of annoying. And, sometimes, playback stops while the Roon remote is re-connecting. This seems to happen more often when I am playing through my AppleTV, which is connected through wi-fi.

I also use my Dell Laptop as a remote, and I donā€™t have the same problem with that.

Thanks for the details, @Louis_Richardson!

This detail in particular makes it sound like the cause of this behavior may be due to the WiFi connection of the device. Is it a 2.4ghz connection or a 5ghz connection? If youā€™re not using 5ghz, does switching yield any improvements?

Is this laptop using a wired connection or WiFi? If WiFi, which type of connection?

Try updating the firmware here and see if that yields any improvements as well.

Regards,
Dylan

the router I am using is single band, only 2.4 ghz

The laptop is connected via wifi, and I havenā€™t experienced any connection issues on the laptop. Roon works great there.

Roon on the Android only disconnects when the phone is being awakened out of its sleep state. I have never seen the Roon app disconnect when it is visible on the phone screen. If I set the Roon app to ā€œkeep screen awakeā€, and keep the app visible, then it never disconnects. When the app does disconnect, it always reconnects promptly.

Iā€™m gonna hold off on his step for now, out of fear that it might cause other network issues. Iā€™ll try it when I have more free time to dedicate, and report back.

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Thanks for the details, @Louis_Richardson!

May I ask that you please verify the following:

Go to ā€˜Security & Locationā€™ in Settings on the device ā€” Is screen lock set to ā€œNoneā€?

If so, try changing it to another setting (PIN, pattern, etc.) and see if you notice any change in behavior.

Regards,
Dylan

Thanks Dylan. It was already set to unlock with a pin.

I do have some ā€œSmart Lockā€ settings turned on. Iā€™ll try turning those off.

Thanks for the info, @Louis_Richardson.

Does this happen every time the device wakes up, or only sometimes?

What are your current ā€œsleepā€ and ā€œlockā€ settings? Does the device ā€œlockā€ immediately when the device sleeps?

When this issue occurs, is the phone going directly from ā€œsleepā€ to Roon, or does it go from ā€œsleepā€ to lockscreen to Roon? We currently have a ticket open for a similar issue where Roon may have similar behavior when an Android device wakes from sleep, but does not go to the lockscreen, so Iā€™m hoping to discover if the same thing may be happening here. If you set the device to lock immediately upon sleep, does this issue go away?

Regards,
Dylan

One correction to what I wrote above. It is set to unlock with a pin, but also by fingerprint, which is what I typically use.

As far as sleep and lock settings, I will check that and get back later.

No, not every time. It seems that the longer that the phone has been asleep, the more likely the app is to disconnect.

I changed my sleep and lock settings, and I didnā€™t find that this made any difference. Prior to changing the settings, the phone was set to sleep after 1 minute of inactivity, and to lock 1 minute after that. I changed the settings so that it both slept and locked after 1 minute of inactivity. The app would still occasionally disconnect, even though I was going from sleep, to lock screen, to Roon.

I havenā€™t done enough testing to state this definitively, but it seems to happen more often when I am playing to my AppleTV. Also, playback to the AppleTV occasionally stops, and I have to wait about 1 minute before it will restart. The two sometimes happen at the same time. I will go to open the Android app, and it will say ā€œConnection Lostā€. While it is reconnecting, playback to the AppleTV will stop. Although, both things happen independently at times too.

My other playback device is a HiFiBerry Dac+ with an ethernet connection, connected to a Pioneer receiver. Although the Android app does disconnect when this zone is selected, it seems to happen a little less frequently, and playback to the HiFiBerry never stops.

Thank you for the update, @Louis_Richardson!

The information above makes it sound like there me be some networking issues at play here. Since it happens less often when the AppleTV is not also using the WiFi, that may be an important clue. I would check your router for any settings that may throttle connections.

Moving forward with troubleshooting, Iā€™d like to enable diagnostics on your account so I can get a diagnostics report over to our tech team for analysis. Before I do so, could you reproduce the behavior and make note of the time you see the disconnect occur? Once this happens.

Do you use the laptop and the Android device at the same time? Can you confirm that there are times when the Android device disconnects but the laptop is still connected to the Core without any issues?

Regards,
Dylan

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