Bring back local search / offline functionality for offline Roon Core [restored with Build 1365]

[Ethan_S (Ethan Schweitzer)]

As quoted from many fellow Roon users:

@Andrew_Webb

So… If I’m invested in Roon, with all the playlists, tags, and hearts, and my Internet goes down, I can’t play my own music? How does that make sense? Even a crippled, no-metadata Roon is better than can’t play my own music. Isn’t the main point of Roon playing music?

@Joerg

this functionality is very important cause sometimes my provider is down and my music also? All the best

@Anthony_B

Time to work out a Plan B then, looks like some people will be needing it!

@SukieInTheGraveyard

I’ve always enjoyed the fact that I can still use Roon when my internet connection is down.

@Charles_Dunlap

This is absurd!

Everyone’s internet goes down at some point.

@Gary_V

This will be a deal breaker for me if you maintain this position.

@Matt_Simpson

This is an absolutely terrible decision. I shouldn’t need internet access to play back my 300k song library I’ve spent decades building. If my internet goes out I shouldn’t have my listening interrupted.

According to Danny:

@danny

we used to have two search algorithms. One ran locally and one ran remotely. The local one was quite poor because it lacked the infrastructure to keep a good search engine operational. But because of offline support, we needed to keep both functional. The online one keeps getting better but the one that lives in the Core hasn’t been improving at the same pace. Search is a major pain point for many of our users and it’s a shame because many of those same users are using the local engine often. On top of that, being, consistency is extremely frustrating. With 2.0 we killed the local engine. So now all search requests go through a single unified engine that will continue to improve. But if we advertise offline support, then search has to work offline, which has been problematic.

Most Roon users would prefer to have offline capabilities than having a slightly better search engine. Please bring this feature back in some capacity.

[Andrew_Webb]

How is it possible that
Apple Music
Swinsian
Plexamp
Media Center
Finder
Windows Explorer
And literally every single media player on the planet can search a pile of FLACs and Roon can’t? How hard can it possibly be?

Even if you leave out all the tags and
special junk, the main metadata is right there in the files. Read it and store it.

I can’t even finish typing a search (any criteria) in Swinsian before it’s showing me results, and I have 8 terabytes of FLAC.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to find and play songs.

Go out on the street and ask ten people if they would use a music player that won’t play their own files if it’s not connected to the internet. Seriously. Try it.

[Daiyama]

A question:
Is „only“ search broken and I still can browse by artist, album tracks etc? Meaning I still can play music through Roon or is it when Roon is offline this means no music at all?

[Oggie]

When it is offline you cannot even play. I simulated that by unplugging the external cable that goes to my modem and then play a song for 1 minute then played another song. The second song only played for 2 seconds and then it stopped and the Pause button symbol changed into Play triangle button… Pressing that play button repeatedly did not revive the ability to play that file any more until I reconnect the ISP cable to modem.

[Daiyama]

Ok, that is bad.
No browsing by local folder, no offline search, no playing of any track (even local) when offline. Roon is cutting of completely of its own music library and forcing users to find other offline solutions.

For me it is not really relevant, I do not remember when the last internet disconnection happened and my offline library fits on a single Micro SD card (1000 CDs in 16/44 FLAC), so offline fallback is easy for me, but I can image many use cases where this matters, that’s why I voted for this.

[Eric_Ho]

Working without Internet connection is a necessary function for me. I do not have internet connection all the time.

[Greg_Wright]

Its starting to look a bonus that my Mac mini doesn’t support 2.0.
I don’t mind upgrading the hardware, but seriously, this has to get fixed.

[itzlbritzl]

Dear Roon. I love your software. And making the core available for off-site use (if you choose to do so) is huge.

But come on… the downsides of your design and your „how to“ really are just ridiculous. I am trying to stay as calm and clinical about this as possible, but man that is not an easy task! This about being able to listening to my beloved music. It doesn’t get a lot more emotional than this… you seem to be forgetting that!

Considering Roon‘s legacy it is absolutely beyond me, how a software company, who developed the most expensive music server software ever seen, renders my local music useless when offline. Absolutely flabbergasting!

Do people really have to buy Audirvana or Amarra additionally to Roon to be able to play their own music on their own stereo when they:

• have an internet outage
• have a vacation home which is offline by design

This is just bad policy. This is Apple-like arrogant „Apple knows best“-attitude. Please refrain from that. An analogy: Apple designs MacBooks in a way so that the device boots up as soon as you open the lid or push any button. And the user cannot switch off that „feature“. You seriously need to install third party software that switches off your keyboard while the MacBook is running in order to clean your f••••ng keyboard! They sell unfunctional bugs as a feature and the customer who pays top dollar has no choice (while it would be the simplest software switch to leave him with said choice).

This is the road you are taking now unfortunately… and you are even worse, because after all one can still use a MacBook with a dirty keyboard or after one messed up a lot of stuff and settings with unintentional use of keyboard shortcuts.

A 700 dollar music server (ok, I „only“ paid 500) that renders local music useless… music which I bought and I possess, stored on a compact hardware which I possess (and like to bring along to my offline by design vacation home)… a music server which renders my local music useless when internet is out of service… when all the metadata already is locally stored on the core‘s SSD. Come on: you simply cannot be serious about that!

Everybody can live which a less efficient search engine in these moments when there is no internet service, switching back to online search when internet is up again.

Really, this is like building a house without windows and then trying to carry light inside in suitcases. I lack the words to describe what I am feeling right now… this is one of the moments that really make you wonder if software developers just stay awake at night, thinking about new ways to annoy users…

Sorry but considering the emotional topic of having my music at hand this is as objective and clinical as it gets

[Oggie]

Yes, it is very bad decision.

This is also discussed here Roon 2.0 and internet connectivity [it's just like 1.8 now]

And there is also a feature request which people can vote which is similar to this. But, somehow it is not combine. So the number of votes is split into two threads

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/make-roon-play-local-music-files-w-o-internet-access/214998

Hope they will bring back functionalities when offline. I cannot understand why Roon at home cannot function at all when the Internet is down.

[Eliyahu_Isakov]

why do you now have to be online to use roon. this is horrible and i will be cancelling my roon subscription if this isnt fixed in an update or sumin. absolutely ridiculous

[Mark_Bowell]

I agree this is a really significant drawback. I want to play my own music when the internet is down, as happened a few days ago. Please sort it out!

[Mark_D (Mark Dski)]

My initial purpose in purchasing Roon was to have a music player to handle my digital files, whether local or streaming. To lose the ability to play local files in the event of an internet outage now makes Roon 2.0 less - not more, regardless of any new features that allow mobile capability. The fundamental purpose of Roon was a music player for the home. No more. I’m still on 1.8 for that purpose, and I’m a lifetime subscriber - so that means I’m stuck with the feature set of 1.8 - never to see an improvement.
I agree with others on this topic - 2.0 should allow local music capability whether the internet is available or not.

[Richard_McDonnell]

Watch Darko speak about this on YouTube one comment struck me - if Arc can work offline allowing you to play tracks saved to you phone surely Roon Core can do the same.

Disappointing Roon.

Totally understand the desire to move to the cloud - our phone, apps and computers are all in that space too but they usually facilitate an offline mode that has less features.

Roon has many strengths but a key one of these is the arrangement and play back of local files. This should be possible without an internet connection for a considerable period of time.

[Ronny_Stratling (Ronny Strätling)]

Make Roon play local music files w/o internet access.

Please give us back this basic feature.

Advanced search functionality may be deactivated in this case - that would be ok.

[Oggie]

Yes, I would like a better way of handling this issue, just like it was done in the previous version which was handled pretty well.

[Lee_Smith]

I’ll +1 this even though I can’t remember the last time my own internet went down for any length of time. Generally speaking there should always be some sort of fallback for such an event. Even if in this case it’s merely to allow a raw search of the local file/folder file system and file/folder names, a la File Explorer.

At least have a rudimentary fallback to be able to manually navigate to and play a song/album when the internet’s down. There is no good reason not to be able to do that for local files accessible on one’s LAN.

[SisyphusStone (Hemlock Andashes)]

Many of Roon’s customers are on less that highly reliable ISPs (many of which hold regional monopolies, so switching providers is not an option) and loss of access to our local library is quite a hardship. Using the 1.8 Legacy option to circumvent this “feature” of 2.0 is untenable given the inherent future uncertainty of legacy-ware.

So, please make Roon 2.0 work without internet – as 1.8 did (until at least it had to phone home for verification).

(h/t @mikeb for the suggestion)

[Ronny_Stratling (Ronny Strätling)]

Forgetting for a moment this “always online” issue I’d like to emphasize that the roon team provided us with a great tool. Being honest - we are all aliens and freaks. The mainstream is streaming (the cheaper the better). We’re freaks and roon provided us the freak tool for audiophile aliens. I hope the issue will be fixed as they have done in the past.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

Yeah, the 2.0 release was stellar, so it’s sad that for certain users and usage patterns it is stained by this

[JeffN (Jeff)]

I vote +1 for this as well.

When I started my journey with Roon, 2016 I think, I was specifically looking for an elegant way to manage and listen to my own music. I don’t have a huge library; about 1500 CDs and SACDs and another 500 purchased hi-res audio albums. But I like to collect, as I think many here do. Collecting means having my stuff. Streaming is a nice convenience, but in a marketplace filled with streaming as a first option, cloud-based access, etc., Roon singularly provided a great, in-house solution while I built an amazing stereo listening room around Roon Core, and quickly became a lifetime subscriber (over 5 years now). I listen throughout the house, and luxuriate in the listening room.

I’m in Colorado, multiple times a year I’ve spent at least a weekend day without internet service. Without internet to browse, watch, or waste time, there is not a better time to listen to my music. When I’m away at the mountain cabin for a week or two to write or recharge, I specifically do not have internet. I’ve built a sound system there, grab the NUC, and head west. Heaven.

Now this is not an option. I got no warning that one of my systems is in constant jeopardy (internet outages) and one is dead in the water (cabin).

Staying on an unsupported (after 12/2022), legacy product is not a long term solution.

Please make basic access to local files for playback an option in Roon 2.0.

Thanks.