Hilarious analogy (and sad). The forum would be so much better without the noise you are pointing out however well intentioned folks are.
I also find plexamp to be rock solid on android auto and thats my go to these days. Music is playing before the car is started and stays playing until i exit the car. Never have any dropouts even when driving in the mountains with one bar of mobile service.
Arc is completely hit and miss, with miss being the standard unfortunately. Way too many issues, interuptions and silence.
My Roon, Plex (and Lyrion) are on the same server. Plex and Lyrion are 100% reliable. Roon is the problem child. I recently have one endpoint on wifi that Roon now drops and skips on constantly. Plex and Lyrion stream to it with no issues whatsoever. I find myself using Lyrion over Roon in general these days when at home.
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I just put a ticket in because Roon canât find my Nucleus Plus. The setup worked for 2 plus years. Everything possible is hardwired to avoid the possible issues with WiFi. Network scanners canât find the Plus unless itâs one of the unidentified items. I just paid for lifetime because we have enjoyed this system so much. I have been burned a couple of times because of startups that went belly up. Figured that since Samsung now owns them things should be okay. We didnât change anything recently and it was working a few days ago. Feels like Deja Vu all over again.
I completely understand where youâre coming from. But the issue is that It can be frustrating when someone shares an issue and the first responses are from people saying they have no problems. While likely well-meaning, those comments can feel a bit like an unintended accusatio, as if the poster must be doing something wrong because âit works for them,â and therefore Roon is flawless. Unfortunately, that doesnât really help troubleshoot and often adds to the frustration. Constructive input or helpful questions to narrow down the problem would be much more valuable. After all, if thereâs no room for constructive criticism here, the forum risks losing its value and becoming little more than a fansite chatbox
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Iâve been running Roon on a NUC with ROCK for 10 years flawlessly. ARC however is not flawless but does work most of the time. I do stick to a few rules on my configuration which has changed a few times as Iâve moved house and changed my end points. I am/was a network/IT engineer so the rules are based on my experiences. rule #1 never use MS Window as the OS for ROON (I use ROCK which is affectively integrated with ROON and will be the most tested and supported O/S). Rule #2 all my main media devices in my home network are Ethernet connected (no wifi and make sure the wifi option in ROCK is turned off. Rule #3 set up the router as the DHCP server and to reserve IP addresses for all media devices including synlogy NAS. Rule #4 never used USB output from the ROON server to connect to a DAC. Rule #5 never ever turn the Roon server off or reset it without shutting it down from ROCK first. Mines being running now for nearly 10 years continuously - never reset it apart from when I moved house. I have a meshed network and use wifi for all my computers and ROON controllers (IPhone/iPads) - no issues although i do believe some meshed network products can be problematic. With regard to those that do have problems - I do not believe ROON to be the problem, while it is very forgiving any problems you have will almost certainly be network problems.
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10 years you sure RoonOS was first released May 2017. But a good innings none the less.
Windows works just fine. I moved to a more powerful windows machine from Rock and itâs improved my performance without any reduction in reliability. Any quirks that still happen also happened on Rock.
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I would disagree about #1, as much as some people hate it, Windows is the most popular OS in the world and one that the majority of Roonâs users would be using. Itâs as tested as anything. RoonOS is really far too castrated to be something I would recommend for any serious use. If one wants a dedicated server-grade OS, any number of Linux distributions would do a much better job.
#4 is a non-issue, especially if using a real OS for the server. But the rest re very good advice, even though in real world #5 is impossible if using RoonOS which is incapable of even a graceful shutdown when the UPS goes on batteryâŚ
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Thatâs not what RoonOS is intended for⌠
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100% and so well put. This should be posted at the top of the community to reduce the type of noise that is not a contribution yet garners gamefied kudos from the software.
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Well, thatâs something that could be argued about for ages⌠Obviously, it works for Roon Labs, and thatâs what they ship with Nuclei. But personally, if I were to build a machine for running Roon server (and I take my Roon quite seriously, and it IS a server, not much different from any other application server), RoonOS, with its lack of monitoring and management would be the last OS Iâd consider. If anything, because of #5 above. Even Windows 3.1 could have been nicely shut down when the power goes out. And of course the whole âwe wonât tell you how much memory Roon is currently using, but if it runs out of memory it will crash; but it can crash for other reasons, too, but we wonât tell youâ thing⌠Honestly, if anyone working wioth me had delivered something like that, theyâd be out onb the street in about 5 minutes or soâŚ
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And it works for me - I want a music appliance, not a general purpose computer.
Sadly itâs not though. Itâs a general purpose computer pretending to be an appliance with all the associated downsides of a computer and none of the control.
As one of many users who abandoned Rock after poor quality Roon updates that coul not be looked at or understanding what was happening, I have been much happier on DietPi for almost a year, whilst I also get to run LMS, Plex server and AdsetUPNP.
Am I saying it is for everyone, no not at all. But I do like the excellent monitoring facilities and when Roon has kicked off one of its crazy Metadata update processes I can quickly look and see what is happening. Thatâs enough for me to be happy (along with the enhanced functionality)
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I beg to differ - the hardware is the basis of a general purpose computer, but itâs the software that determines its behaviour. And RoonOS makes it an appliance.
Gentlemen can disagree and still be gentlemen 
I used to believe the same, but I canât remember my Microwave or fridge ever stopped working or crashing.
My NAS maybe gets rebooted once or twice a year when it gets a major update, I feel that is more of a true computer based appliance than Rock.
Though I concede if not having access to the OS makes it an appliance then you are correct.
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Which is great, but as had happened to many people here, it only works until it does not.
I would completely agree thaty this is what we want from a Roon server. Unfortunately, it still is nothing but a general purpose computer, running what really is a garden variety general purpose Linux, just with some important pieces stripped out.
I would disagree here. It might try to make it an appliance, but neither the hardware nor the RoonOS itself succeed. Maybe if there were a built-in battery to ensure the âdatabaseâ is flushed to disk when the power goes out, and some âidiot lightsâ to warn you about out of memory, overheating, and other problems, then it would be more of an appliance. As it is, itâs a general purpose computer, with a general purpose OS, which just hides that fact until there is a problem, at which point you are left to scratch your head and scramble to restore backups.
Ironically, one could build a much more appliance-like Roon server by using⌠even Windows⌠with properly configured monitoring and defined actions on problems. Kind of like my fridge, which, so far, had never crashed. but does warn me if there is some problem (usually kids not closing the door).
OK, then we agree to disagree. 
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This is not true. Roon came out in 2015 with Windows and Mac software. The Linux and ROCK versions did not come out until years later.
This is not true. Roon was programmed for Windows and Mac using .NET. Linux and ROCK came later. ROCK is just a custom Linux running the same RoonServer as the other OSâs. There is no functional or SQ difference between any of the RoonServers.
I have and still do have running a ROCK, Nucleus, and Windows Roon Servers to test. My Windows Roon Servers (built a new PC in 2019) has been running without incident for a decade.
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Yup ROCK came out in May 2017 (but presumably was being used in Nucleus somewhat before that?). Iâve been using it since June 2017 on a fanless NUC.
Itâs really not, as every Linux distro uses a rather complex package management and dependency system that has its own pitfalls. Every ROCK update is a complete atomic replacement, which is completely different from a Linux distro.
If it terminally breaks, you reflash and restore the backup. This is much easier than maintaining even a simple Linux distro. (Itâs still not an appliance, but then you buy a new appliance if the old one breaks, and one could do that)
Danny wrote that Roon OS was an attempt to prevent people from running Linux who have no business to do so, and to prevent the associated support cost. I guess itâs successful at that.
And despite people repeatedly saying that these days itâs easy to run Linux, it really isnât for the ânot technicalâ crowd. (Nor is Windows for that matter).