I’m trying out Roon on the 14 day trial period. I’m trying to run the Roon Remote Android on a Samsung Galaxy S5 phone. About once a minute, the UI just freezes, and forces me to restart the application. I didn’t see this phone listed as “compatible” to the Roon remote interface, but was hoping it would work since it is a generic Android phone. Is there something I can do to get this to work? I don’t have a tablet or any of the few phones listed in the compatibility list.
Also, the app seems to consume battery very quickly. I’m less concerned with this, as long as the UI stops locking up. I don’t know if there is a specific way to send you a log file from the crash event on my phone, but please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I’d like this to work on my phone.
I’m using the latest version download of software from your website (64-bit windows for the server, and Android for the remote phone). Server OS is Win10. Music is stored locally as FLAC, but since I just started using the setup just yesterday, I noticed the hanging while trying TIDAL streaming. I have not other situations yet.
Hi @Kathir_Manthiram ----- Thank you for the report and sharing your feedback with us. I am sorry to hear of the troubles.
Moving forward, to help aide in our understanding of this issue you are experiencing with the Galaxy S5, may I very kindly ask you for the following information:
When the error occurs (i.e UI freezes) does playback stop?
Based on your report my sense is that this is happening every time the application is launched on the remote, is this correct? Has there ever been a time when you didn’t experience this behavior?
Before the UI freezes are there any patterns in “usage” that seem to trigger the issue?
Have you tried reinstalling the application on this device?
Are there any other applications or processes running on the S5 when the issue occurs?
The playback does not stop when the UI crashes. I am sending the Tidal output to HQplayer, so the stream in HQplayer continues to play.
Pretty much, every time the Android remote app is open, it will eventually freeze/crash. Sometimes within a minute, sometimes it takes more than a few songs. Since the audio is still playing, I won’t notice until I use the remote to try to switch tracks, etc.
I have not noticed any particular pattern of button presses or series of events that always cause the remote to freeze. It appears very random. Sometimes it crashes once a minute or faster. Sometimes the phone runs for 15min or more before freezing.
I have not tried reinstalling the app on the phone. The original install process went smoothly. But, I will try removing and re-installing to check.
I don’t have very many apps on my phone. When using Roon, I usually don’t run other apps concurrently. At one point, I restarted my phone, did not run any other app except Roon, but still the UI froze.
This time I had the server playing out to its local speakers (rather than through HQplayer) just to confirm if the music would stop when the remote freezes/crashes. The music kept playing still.
I suspect the UI freezes after a time of inactivity (for example, after the phone screen goes off). So far I have not seen the UI freeze while I’m actively using it. Only when I put down the phone, listen to music, then pick the phone back up to change tracks. I wonder if the phone OS automatically sets some other low power settings (for example on the WiFi) when the phone thinks it should try to save power because the user is not actively manipulating the phone. Does this give any clues?
In the Android ‘Settings’ select ‘Battery->Battery optimization’, and then from the pull down in the upper left corner select ‘All apps’, then scroll down to the Roon app and set it to ‘Not optimized’.
Hi @Kathir_Manthiram ---- Thank you for the follow up and sharing the observations you have made during your troubleshooting of this behavior. The update is appreciated!
Moving forward, I would like to enable diagnostics on your account so our techs can try to get a better sense as to what could possible be causing this issue to occur on the S5. With this in mind I would kindly like to ask you to please reproduce the issue and note the following time frames:
“I suspect the UI freezes after a time of inactivity (for example, after the phone screen goes off). So far I have not seen the UI freeze while I’m actively using it. Only when I put down the phone, listen to music, then pick the phone back up to change tracks.”
Time frame#1: Note the time when you can interact with the UI without issue.
Time frame#2: Note the time when the UI freezes after the period of inactivity.
Time frame#3: Note the time when you are able to use the remote application again.
I tried keeping track of this, down to the approximate minute. Here is what happened in one instance:
When I first start the remote UI, set up tracks, then play, I noticed the UI stayed responsive for about 7 tracks (about 26-29min). When the phone screen goes off, I just swipe to enable the screen and view that the track time indicator is moving. I do not try to interact with the UI otherwise. I kept checking the UI after every song track (3-5min) to verify exactly when the system crashes. After this crash, and restart, I noticed that crash occurs over and over again about every 3-5min after restarting the UI. This is when it gets really annoying
I’ve seen similar behavior another time I used the Roon remote (next day). I think it is fairly consistent that the remote runs longest for the first time. I do not restart my phone. The frequency I use Roon is about once a day, in the evening.
This may be coincidence, but I’ve noticed the UI never hangs when I’m actively engaging with it (either manipulating settings, tracks, or just keeping the screen alive by scrolling up and down but not manipulating the UI). Since it has hard to catch the exact moment of a crash, this may be coincidental. But, this could also be a clue.
Hi @Kathir_Manthiram ----- Thank you for touching base with me and providing the requested feedback. My apologies for the slow response here.
Upon seeing your update (as mentioned in my previous), I went ahead and enabled diagnostics on your account so we can try to understand the cause of this behavior with the S5. What this action will do is the next time Roon is active on your core machine and the S5 remote, a diagnostics report will automatically be generated/uploaded directly to our servers containing a set of your Roon logs.
Once the mentioned diagnostics report has been received I will be sure to follow up to confirm that we have it and then get it over to our techs asap for analysis.
Thanks. I am out of town for the holidays, and won’t return until around Jan 5. You won’t see any activity until then. Let’s hope the diagnostics can help point to what is causing the problem. One thing I notice is the play queue gets buffered up with random FLAC files I have on my local hard disk. For example, if I play a whole album from Tidal, and the remote UI crashes some time while everything is going, once the Tidal album finishes, then HQplayer just starts streaming random FLAC files from my hard drive. This even happens if I play only a single song from Tidal, and the remote freezes. Usually, I’d expect Roon to only play what I have asked it to play, not continue playing random tracks. I don’t know if this gives a clue either. This may be something that occurs only when piping the audio output through HQplayer.
Hi @Kathir_Manthiram ---- Thank you for getting in touch with me, I appreciate the “heads up”. I will be on the look out for your return so we can continue troubleshooting this issue.
Safe travels, and all the best to you and your family this holiday season!
-Eric
Hi Eric, I’ve been back for about a week now. I’ve used Roon several times since then, so you will notice all the crash logs on my account.
I tried disabling the “dim screen” feature on Roon (so that my phone screen would not go off). I have not seen the crash yet when I’ve tried this a couple times. Granted, the time to crash is completely random (sometimes almost 1hr before the first crash), so I will really need to try this out more (for longer periods) before I can make this conclusion. One thing is clear though. If I use this setting, but manually turn the screen off on the phone (by tapping the power button), and then try to access Roon later (while running in the background), eventually it will lock up/crash the same way as before.
Hi @Kathir_Manthiram ------ Thank you for the follow up, hope your holiday travels were enjoyable. All the best to you and your loved ones in 2018!
Upon seeing your update I checked our servers and the mentioned diagnostics report has been received. I am going to be updating your ticket with your recent observations and attaching the report to be reviewed by our tech team. Once the team has completed their analysis, I will be sure to share their thoughts/findings with you asap.
In the mean time, if you make any new observations please due share them with me so I can keep the team up to date while they conduct their investigation.
Hi @Kathir_Manthiram ----- Thank you for your patience here while our tech team has been investigating ths behavior you’ve reported to use with the S5.
Moving forward, the team would like to see if we can trigger a change in behavior with S5 by also enabling the “lock screen” on the device, along with the already disabled “dim screen” feature. How does the application respond under these conditions?
Hi Eric, OK, I will try that. I usually dont lock the screen with a number code or swype sequence. I just have the phone open for anyone. I hate all the extra steps.
So far, I’ve listened to music maybe 2 more times, and so far, with the screen dim setting set in Roon to disable the screen dimming, I have not seen the GUI lockup. A few times by habit, I manually (accidentally) turn off the screen, and sometimes within a couple minutes, when I wake back up the system, the GUI is frozen again. I think I still need to test more, but the rate of success with the screen continuing to stay lit is 100%, even over about 30-45min period of time of not touching the GUI.
Given this info, do you still want to try turning on the lock screen on the phone?
