Thank you for running those tests. I am taking through the logs now, and I do see quite a few abnormal traces listed in them, so I am going to go ahead and reach out to our QA team who will be able to provide further analysis for this issue.
Do note, it may take a bit of time for my request to reach their queue, but I think it’s best that we loop them in and request their expertise for this case. Thank you in advance for your patience here, and I will reach out as soon as I have any further info to share.
Thank you for your patience here while QA has been looking into this issue further. Analysis is still on-going but they have requested some additional info as to pinpoint this issue further. Can you please let me know the following?
What is the size of your Roon library? Can you please navigate to Roon -> Overview tab and share a screenshot of number of tracks/albums/artists present?
If you try connecting two endpoints that exhibit this behavior directly via Ethernet to your router or primary access point, does the same behavior still occur? The test here would be: Have Aires + Core connected via Ethernet, try transferring the zones just between your Aires and a local Core output (System Output or one of the USB zones), see if the same behavior occurs.
Can you please let me know those two pieces of info when possible?
Hi Noris. So, now Conservatory Roon (Aeries Mini), the iMac Core (Study headphones & Study speakers) and the Orbi router are all connected to the same gigabit ethernet switch. The Aeries Mini is outputting via analogue (!) rather than USB.
After a few dozen end-point switches wirelessly from my iPhone XS, without rebooting any network device or anything except the Aeries mini, not only are the Conservatory Roon and Core endpoints solid, but so are all the endpoints I tried (including the iPhone XS).
Could the problem be interference between the two Aeries Minis over WiFi?
I can’t really get ethernet to either rooms where the Aeries Minis live, except perhaps ethernet over mains.
I’ve now swapped things around, so I have Roon Dayroom (Aries mini) connected via ethernet over mains and Roon Conservatory (Aries mini) back in the conservatory connected over WiFi.
Firstly, every endpoint now seems solid.
Secondly, I can now successfully play over AirPlay to grouped RoonConservatory+RoonDayroom+Phantoms+Homepod, which hasn’t worked for months.
Could this problem stem back to September when I bought the second Aries mini, and they have been intermittently colliding over WiFi ever since?
On going back, Roon Conservatory claimed to be playing (with play time progressing), but no music emerged. Roon Dayroom refused to play, then rebooting Aries Mini did play, then went back to slow loading.
It’s like there is some buffer which gets reset when I make a configuration change, and when it’s exhausted, chaos ensues.
Thank you for the update here but to properly troubleshoot this issue, we should try to only change one variable at a time to see where the issue lies. I am a bit confused as per your latest posts, let me try to clarify a bit:
Roon Conservatory was connected via WiFi and Roon Dayroom was connected via Powerline
Both of these endpoints had issues after a while
Question #1 - Were they still grouped or were they playing as individual zones?
Question #2 - When the above issue occurred, were the iMac Core local zones working as expected?
As I mentioned, it would be best to take troubleshooting one step at a time and see where exactly it stops working. By this I mean:
Do not have any of your zones grouped
Have one of the Aires connected directly to the Router as well as your Core. Leave the other Aires out of the equation for the time being
Have all of your active endpoints connected to the same Router
Verify if any issues occur over a period of a day while playing to various endpoints
Repeat the same test with the other Aires, leaving only one connected at a time
If playback stops on just one of the Aires but the other one works as expected, we know which direction to take a closer look in
If you can perform this test, it should give us a good data point. I should also mention that the symptoms you are describing may also be an indication of an unstable network setup or an issue with the router itself. As such, I would reach out to Orbi and ask if they can run a diagnostics check on all of your Orbi gear just in case there are any hardware issues in this regard.
I take your point about changing one variable at a time. It is significant I think that following reboot or reconfiguration all end-points can be completely solid for a while: the problem takes time to rematerialise.
To clarify on the points above:
I ungrouped after the 6:02pm post: there were no grouped end points in the 9:33pm post
Yes, Roon Conservatory was connected over WiFi and Roon Dayroom over power line
Yes, both end-points had issues after a while
They were playing as individual zones
I did not test the iMac local zones (I will check next time): I have never seen a connection timeout on the iMac local zones (nor on the Phantoms via AirPlay nor on any of the three Chromecast endpoints)
I have powered-off Roon Conservatory for the time being (reverting to Chromecast in that room).
iMac Core, Orbi Router and Roon Dayroom (via power line) are connected to the same switch.
Hi Noris, with the configuration above, music has been playing perfectly between Dayroom Roon (via power line) and Conservatory Chromecast. And I’ve just walked around and successfully transferred to:
Lounge Chromecast
Lounge Phantoms
Dining Room HomePod
Dayroom AppleTV
Study Headphones
Barry’s iPad
Barry’s iPhone XS ( I did get a timeout as a news alert came in, but that’s understandable)
So, it seems that all is good with just one Aries Mini online.
I then switched zones to Barry’s iPad (paired with a Bluetooth speaker), and after a few minutes walked outside. At this point the iPad probably changed access point, I imagine from Orbi Dayroom to Orbi Garage. The music stopped playing, and in the Roon app on the iPad the end-point Barry’s iPad had disappeared:
Thank you for confirming this aspect. Since the Dayroom Aires is working as expected, we should take a closer look at the Conservatory Aires, possibly reinstalling the firmware on the device would be a good next step.
Yes, if you wish you can upload a log set to Dropbox or Google Drive and provide a link, I can take a look that way. Also, diagnostics mode is active but I do not see a new report yet, next time you boot up your Core I will be on the lookout for any new reports.
After sending the crash log over, I think it’s best that we try to verify the behavior of Roon with a fresh database as a temporary test. You can set your old database aside by using these instructions and I would be curious to know if they help mitigate the amount of issues you are seeing:
Thank you for sending the log over, I can confirm that I have received it.
Please try the second part of my instructions when you have a chance, I would like to see if the same issue occurs with a fresh database. Note, please do not restore from a backup once you set the old database aside while we run this test.
Firstly, I have swapped out the Netgear Orbi WiFi in favour of Linksys Velop, so the timeout issue is not being caused by idiosyncrasies in the Orbis.
I now have two Roon folders that I can switch between. The new one has scanned the same music folder. I have not bothered to synchronise iTunes playlists, and it does not have all my custom artist images.
Starting from the skeletal Roon folder, I could not provoke the timeout switching between Dayroom Aries (ethernet over power line in, USB out), iPhone XS and Lounge Chromecast.
Switching to the full Roon folder, I generated timeouts after a few switches:
PS: I remembered that I had Memory for Photos/Artwork set to 2048MB, so I set it to Minimum. This seemed to make things worse rather than better, and generated:
After adding a new artist picture and downloading a new track via iTunes, I had trouble adding a new artist picture. I quite Roon and on restart received:
I restored last night’s backup:
Then I get a continual blue busy circle:
which is still running, three hours later (still 49:0:0).
I have just tried to enable diagnostics mode for your PC’s new install, but it appears that the diagnostics are not coming through. Can you please send me a manual copy of your logs by using these instructions and send them via Dropbox / Google Drive / Send.firefox.com?
