Beware installing Roon on Ubuntu

Same problem. Looks like they fixed the Roon Server installer, but not the RoonBridge installer.

@noris, you seeing this?

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Thanks for the heads up on this @scolley / @Bill_Janssen , Iā€™ll inquire with the team.

Iā€™m having the strangest problem with RoonBridge in Ubuntu 22.04.3.

RoonBridge appears to be installed successfully. As does ALSA. Below is a screenshot from my iPad, set to the RoonBridge zone, showing the Settings/Audio screen, where RoonBridge is clearly recognized and enabled for the speakers of the PC that it is running on.

In this picture I had just hit the play button, and you can see the ā€œFailed to open the Audio deviceā€ error message. What gives? Advice anyone?

Thanks.

I donā€™t have a solution, I can only confirm that I ran into issues too on my new Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (kernel 6.2.0) machine while trying to run Roon Bridge on it. Canā€™t remember exactly what all went wrong (pretty sure no sound, maybe even a crash of the OS while trying to playback). As this machine of mine isnā€™t intended as being part of my Roon ecosystem anyway, and so far no one else reported any issue back then, I didnā€™t look closer and just uninstalled Roon Bridge from it (I found the instability with Roon Bridge installed concerning enough to not wanna risk leaving it installed).

I am running my core on 22.04.3, still with the 5.15 kernel, and I am now even more reluctant to switch to the newer 6.2 kernelā€¦ On the other hand, it would serve as test for Roon on the 6.2 kernelā€¦

Considering this a little further, I think that Roon Bridge still uses the Mono Runtime and hasnā€™t been switched over to .NETā€¦ so maybe the core wouldnā€™t be affectedā€¦ This is something you could try on your 22.04.3 machineā€¦ install Roon Server instead of the Bridge and see if it runs stableā€¦

Just some piece of context: New installs (installers?) of Ubuntu 22.04.3 onward come with LTE kernel as default which is now 6.2.0 AFAIK. Also, depending on a users hardware, running an older 5.x kernel is no option (example: no support for my GPU on the old kernel).
So why users who installed Ubuntu 22.04 prior to .3 may stay (at least for some time?) with the 5.x kernel, this seems to be no option with new installs (22.04.3 LTS and newer non-LTS variants).

Yes, this I fully understand. Users who installed 22.04 prior to 22.04.3 will be able to continue running the 5.15 kernel until 2026, or so I readā€¦

New installations of Ubuntu (22.04.3 and, presumably, the upcoming 24.04) will get the 6.2 kernel by default, and so it seems to make sense to even now make sure that Roon will run well on this platform. Roon Bridge seemingly doesnā€™t, but it still seems to use the Mono platform, while Roon Server for Linux has been switched over to the .NET environment long ago. So maybe Roon Server will run just fine on the 6.2 kernel right now, even while Roon Bridge does not.

Maybe, maybe not. Roon Server may as well use the same outdated code for its ā€œBridgeā€ component as the standalone Roon Bridge. I wonder if someone already runs its Roon Sever on the new kernel?

Doesnā€™t seem to. On my standalone bridge (DietPi, Roon Bridge), RoonBridge and RoonBridgeHelper are invoked using the SGen garbage collector from the Mono project. This on a server installation doesnā€™t happen.

Well, I now feel curious and adventurous and will try and update my 22.04.3 to the 6.2 kernel and report back. If I run into issues, I can always install a previous version with the older kernel.

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Well, that was quickā€¦ Updated to 6.2.0-31, and Roon Server is up and running and playing back on my remote endpoint.

What I cannot completely test is local playback on the Core machineā€¦ My core has S/PDIF output, which I enabled in Roon and to which I am playing at this moment, without issue. But I have no DAC connected and canā€™t verify if anything is really being output. What I can say, though, is that neither Roon Server nor the OS crash on playing back to the local (to the core) output.

So all seems wellā€¦

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Wow. What a can of worms.

Ironically my RoonBridge - Ubuntu 22.04.3 - worked perfectly a week or so ago. But since this is my primary PC, stability is my primary concern. Canā€™t let figuring out some silly Linux problem get in the way of using my PC, which is why itā€™s Ubuntu, and LTS at that.

Running RoonBridge to play music is - for me - a nice to have (if VERY nice), but far from essential. Getting work done on the PC trumps tunes. I can sit in front of my hifi for that when Iā€™m through with the work that must be done on my PC.

So, where from here? Is there a solution to the ā€œIā€™m running Ubuntu 22.04.3, and RoonBridge does not workā€ problem? A solution that does not separate me from the stability that running an Ubuntu LTS platform is the only solution Iā€™m willing to embrace.

Thanks in advance.

It seems that you have to install Roon Server to utilize its ā€œstableā€ Bridge component ā€“ at least until Roon Labs releases an updated standalone Roon Bridge that works on our systems.

Bummer. Not a fan of having multiple Roon Servers on my network, so Iā€™ll just wait. Thanks.

To provide a little detail, @Nickpi - in this thread - identified the fact that when I log off, RoonBridge should work, if controlled by a remote Roon app. And indeed it does work just fine when I log off Ubuntuā€¦ Itā€™s when I log back on that the ALSA wheels fall off.

Funny that it worked just fine a couple of weeks ago. Something has clearly changed.

The problem is that pulseaudio allocates alsa as soon as you log into the desktop. You have to disable or remove pulseaudio to use your desktop and roonbridge concurrently.

Vice versa, you can play (using remote or roon-tui from the console) and then log in, roon continues playing, but you donā€™t have audio in other applications.

The most elegant solution (that I found) still is squeezelite, No change in your audio, just one additional package. Drawback is that it is restricted to 48 kHz by pulseaudio, if that matters.

B.t.w. it seems that these problems of roon bridge on the linux desktop are not documented.

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Thatā€™s actually a great work-around. Thank you. Since my whole reason for wanting Roon TUI is so that I can listen to Roon, out of the PC speakers, as I use my Ubuntu PC, itā€™s a real simple compromiseā€¦

  1. Log out of Ubuntu.
  2. Using a Roon remote, start music on the RoonBridge Ubuntu PC.
  3. Log back in to Ubuntu.
  4. Start Roon TUI.
  5. Pause RoonBridge playback with Roon TUI when I donā€™t want to hear music out of the PC speakers (unpause when I do).

Beautiful workaround, assuming something does not swing in dealloacate ALSA.

Not surprising. I remember when it came out years ago, and it served the purpose or Roon being able to say, ā€œLook, we even run on Linux.ā€ Purpose served, Iā€™d be surprised if it were much a priority now, especially now that - with the release of ARC - Roon seems to have gone much more main-stream, less of system primarily used by audio techies. Or thatā€™s how it looks to me anyway.

I spoke too soon. After pausing long enough for the last post, Roon TUI can no longer unpause. Will experiment with turning the volume down instead.