B1212 Gaps within playlist caused by apparent buffering at start of next Qobuz track [Ticket in]

Early Access
1

I don’t have gapless issues within one Qobuz album (e.g. DSOTM), this is fine. But when I play a playlist and the playlist advances to a Qobuz track, there seems to be some buffering at the start of the new Qobuz track. This now happens every time and seems to have started recently, not sure when exactly, but I believe during all these gapless issue discussions.

What happens is that the current track advances normally until its end, and when this is reached it switches, seemingly without delay as far as I can tell, to the next track. However, the next track does not start playing immediately but for a few seconds sits at the 0:00 mark while moving a purple highlight left-right-left in the progress bar. Don’t know what the proper name for this highlight is, it looks like the following screenshot (here, the highlight is under the signal path button; it moves from left to right and back)

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Then after about 2 (sometimes 3, occasionally maybe more) seconds the timer starts counting, the progress bar shows the normal knob, the signal path “light” turns on, and the track plays.

Running ROCK and the GUI on macOS and iPad. Rebooting router, switch, and ROCK does not help.
Internet downlink is 300 Mbps.

The problem does not happen when the playlist advances to a local track, only when advancing to a Qobuz track (regardless of whether the previous track was local or Qobuz)

I reproduced just now, 2/19 19:50 CET going from Gatekeeper to Get Lucky:

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A simple confirmation that I am noting the same now. Similar order of delay in start of playback - actually a bit more it seems, more like 5+ seconds typically - when Qobuz songs are picked by Roon radio - and same visual effect in play bar. It was not like this, but have no clear idea when this behaviour started, though must be fairly recent. As if no or insufficient advance buffering happens to keep things flowing without gap.

Rock on NUC 8i7BEH with 2x8GB

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Hi, @Suedkiez, @ToneDeaf, thank you for your reports. @andrew.v is going to take a look at this one.

Thanks!

–
Ivan

2 Likes
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Hi, @Suedkiez, @ToneDeaf, unfortunately, we are not able to reproduce this issue locally. Could you, please, do the following:

  1. Reboot your Core which is affected by this issue (I enabled additional logging for your accounts)
  2. Reproduce this issue once again
  3. Note the timestamp when it happend
  4. Use the directions found here and send over a set of logs to our File Uploader

Thanks!

–
Ivan

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Hello @Ivan,

Thanks for the follow-up :+1:
I haven’t encountered this for a few days now, so not sure I can replicate (not that I mind!), but will reboot just in case and keep an eye out for similar behaviour.

ps
Probably a red herring but in the spirit of full disclosure:
Background Audio Analysis was “off’ at the time of my post. I noticed it the day after and switched it back to 'fast (4 cores)”, my usual setting. Most likely I simply forgot to toggle it back on after stopping it when audio analysis appeared ‘stuck’ on the final or one-but-final track it was analysing. (it occasionally happens after a core update apparently triggers a flurry of analysis)

I thought that background audio analysis only relates to local files. … but if I am wrong and something like e.g. fetching or calculating DR / loudness data for streaming tracks is part of it, I can just imagine that it could entail additional activity on / around start of track, if not done in advance. I certainly added both streaming and local music to my library in the period that audio analysis was off, and volume levelling would have been on “auto” for the zone I was playing too.

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I observe similar behavior.
@ivan Has there been a change to the buffering or Qobuz streaming handling?

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This is a playlist in Roon, containing local and Qobuz tracks.

Summary: A detail in my initial description seems to have been incorrect. It looks like the issue occurs only on Qobuz to Qobuz track changes, not local > local, Qobuz > local, or local > Qobuz, AFAICT. Below follow my steps and approximate time stamp of each track change and what happens:

Rebooted ROCK. Started the playlist from the top (Play Now) at 21:20:00 CET, 2/24, just now.

Screenshot of the start of the playlist.

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  • Local - 21:20:00 or :01: 4 Door Maverick. Starts without delay after tapping Play Now AFAICT
  • Qobuz - 21:23:37: Gatekeeper: Starts without delay after previous track finishes
  • Qobuz - 21:25:54: Get Lucky: Track changes at 21:25:54. The play bar moves the highlight until about :56 or :57, and only then the track starts actually playing.
  • Qobuz - 21:32:08: Drove up from Pedro: Track changes at 21:32:08. The play bar moves the highlight until about :10, and only then the track starts actually playing.
  • Qobuz - 21:36:43: The Ride: Track changes at 21:36:43. The play bar moves the highlight until about :45, and only then the track starts actually playing.

As you see, from the local track 1 to the Qobuz track 2 there does not seem to be a delay, but from Qobuz to Qobuz there is. Therefore, I moved on to a later part of the playlist to compare other local transitions. Starting with Play From Here on “xanny” (Qobuz) while “The Ride” (Qobuz) is still playing:

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  • Qobuz - 21:41:15: xanny. Starts without delay after tapping Play From Here AFAICT
  • Local - 21:45:21: I’m a Fool to Want You. Track changes at 21:45:21. New track seems to play without delay
  • Local - 21:50:12: Chunk of Coal. Track changes at 21:50:12. New track seems to play without delay
  • Local - 21:53:43: Mt. of Love. Track changes at 21:53:43. New track seems to play without delay
  • Qobuz - 22:02:33 (?): Sound & Color. Track changes at about 22:02:33 (forgot to keep my eye on it :frowning: ). New track seems to play without delay.
  • Qobuz - 22:05:34: Lua. Track changes at about 22:05:34. The play bar moves the highlight until about :36, and only then the track starts actually playing.

Stopped playlist.
Stopped Roon Server on ROCK, uploaded the Logs zip.
(Note: I had some short clipping in a few places in Chunk of Coal and Mt. of Love. I know. Playing with DSP and not enough headroom this time)

EDIT: Another note next day: Playing Roon Radio today, this Qobuz > Qobuz transition issue does NOT happen. (I don’t do this often, so can’t say about other days)

2 Likes
10

In helping @UliR with his longer gap
Issues I did notice something similar to @Suedkiez with a playlist. Track finishes then about 2.5 sec pause before the next one in the playlist starts. This was consistent for all tracks. I don’t tend to use playlists much myself so maybe not noticed it up until this time. Not used RR at home for ages now so can’t confirm if I get it here or not. The gaps were consistent as well as I went back and forth a few times to see if anything changed but it was always the same duration until the next track played. I do use DSP so whether this is a contributing factor I can’t say

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Same for me using a convolution filter / DSP there is a pause between Qobuz tracks - and I use playlists most of the time, so it’s annoying.

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Wait a minute, I recently started playing with convolution …

… no, makes no difference for me. Same behavior after turning off all DSP and volume leveling

1 Like
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Same behavior with B1218 just FYI and I think the logs were already with B1218 or at least B1216

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@ivan How do we proceed?

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By giving them time? I posted the logs on Friday evening, now it’s Monday morning

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Hi, @Suedkiez, thank you for your detailed description of the issue. We will take a look at logs soon. Quick question, am I getting it right that this issue with a pause between tracks you noticed happening for different audio zones in your environment?

@Markus_Hubner, seeing as your issue involves DSP Engine, I’d suggest starting a new thread about the issue you are having with a bit more detailed description on your setup, affected zones and info about other DSP options enabled for your zone. I am asking for that because it’d be easier to troubleshoot your issue both for you and us.

Thanks!

–
Ivan

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I only tested it with one zone, my main system, the endpoint here is a Roon-ready Naim NDX-2, wired off the same switch as the ROCK is attached to

I have another zone that is an Android phone with Roon installed (and a 3.5mm jack to a soundbar). This is on wifi. I didn’t try it with that though, should I? Or I could use the local output on a MacBook for instance

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That’s going to be a good test actually:

Thanks!

–
Ivan

1 Like
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With the same playlist as above for which I created the log, when using the MacBook as control device and outputting to the local system output, I still get the same behavior with the gaps when changing to Qobuz tracks. It’s probably worth mentioning that this playlist is the one I used most often as it’s my system check playlist and I played it countless times before and after I had Roon (while assembling my system and many times later for adjustments etc) and I never noticed these gaps before. Meaning that I feel very sure that they were not there because, as you know, one becomes very attuned to the duration of silence from one track to the other, and I noticed when it startled me

Some other playlists have the gaps as well, but not all of them. I see no consistent behavior comparing different playlists:

I have the same playlist as the one for which I created the log as an older Qobuz playlist. This one was originally created on Qobuz (manually assembled), later saved locally in Roon, and again later in the local Roon version all tracks were changed to the ones from my Roon library (some Qobuz, some local). The above logs were created with my local copy of the playlist but the affected tracks obviously from Qobuz but in my Roon library.

When I play the original Qobuz version of the playlist now but within Roon, i.e. the online version without the later changes and none being the tracks from my Roon library, it also shows the gappy behavior now. This is the link to this playlist on Qobuz: Open Qobuz

Other playlists that were not even created by myself but are automatic Qobuz playlists (within Roon) also show the gaps, e.g. this one: Open Qobuz
I played the same playlist now within the Qobuz app and there are no gaps. Playing it again within Roon and there are the gaps again.

However, not every playlist does it. E.g., I have currently a Roon playlist on my Home screen, “Jamaican Scene” with mostly Qobuz and some Tidal tracks. This does not show the behavior on Qobuz > Qobuz nor Qobuz > Tidal > Qobuz track changes. After saving this locally in Roon, it still does not show the behavior either.

An incomplete check shows about half of my playlists with Qobuz tracks having the behavior and half not. The one consistency I seem to see, though without checking every single track change, is that if a playlist shows the behavior at all, all Qobuz track changes in it do. When it does not, none seem to.

Generally, it feels today as if the gaps are slightly shorter than in recent days, but still very noticeably there with the described behavior like the playbar highlight moving and the signal path light off on the new track before the track starts actually playing

I use Cloudflare DNS by the way

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Haha amazing to see - I have also some 2-3 favorite Qobuz playlists I use to test my setup against new components and changes :slight_smile:
So I know every single song by heart and also how they behaved.

I see the same experience (also with DSP completely off): there is a pause most of the time between of 2-5 sec. between songs where there is also no icon of the „signal path“ - looks like something is waiting / pending.

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Still happening with B1237 though currently the buffering at track start is shorter and about 1 second

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Still happening and at this moment back to about 2-3 seconds, B1280

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