Roon Core is running on a Dell Optiplex. I am not in front of it so not completely sure about model but if I were to guess it’d be an Optiplex 3020/3040.
Networking Gear & Setup Details
All homes connections are hardwired
Custom pfSense router built out of a old hp desktop.
Connected Audio Devices
Problematic device in question is an iPhone SE 2nd gen either with headphone jack adapter or FiiO BTR7.
Number of Tracks in Library
~12,000 tracks
Description of Issue
First this is an issue with Roon ARC. This is the 3rd time I’ve seen it happen but I finally got a screenshot of what it looks like before chaos. In this specific scenario I was on public WiFi that was loading very slow and at one point my phone prompt came up saying “This WiFi network does not appear to be connected to the internet, use cellular instead?” So I connected with cellular network instead and the second I do that an error come up on the bottom of Roon ARC stating “Unauthorized” the app black screen and takes me back to the profile select screen.
Now that’s ok and all but my big problem is when this happens it deletes all downloaded data on ARC. In storage preferences on the phone ARC reports the same storage taken up but the total storage shows that same amount of storage being free. It is especially a problem because everytime this happens I have to spend an hour or so redownloading all my playlists.
From everytime I had my downloads deleted it appears to occur when the connection is unstable or very limited and/or switching connections but this happens before I even get the chance to enable offline mode. As for the WiFi I thought it would be fine since my laptop had no issues loading my docs and sites instantly but for some reason the mobile devices struggled even just to load google. Perhaps if there was a way to prompt switching to offline when the connection has issues like this?
Thank you for the report. Switching between WiFi and a cellular network shouldn’t prompt a reauthorization in ARC except under a few circumstances:
the Roon Server machine itself temporarily lost connection to the internet as well
the connection was interrupted in such a way as to create duplicate authorization requests that contradicted one another (ARC was stuck in limbo with SSO).
An initial pass-through of diagnostics shows timeouts mid-reauthorization, as well as broader framework failures due to connectivity.
In any case, we’ll investigate internally. Can you please specify the following in the meantime?
Are you using any VPN, VLANs, virtual machines, or enterprise-grade security software in your network setup?
When this occurs, are you also logged out of your Roon Server machine on your home install? Do you need to sign back in to use Roon at home?
Either Roon or ARC updated to a recently released build, but the other software did not. Please note we released both a Roon and ARC update just prior to your report, so this might be worth verifying.
Thank you for your response Connor. Firstly I do not believe it was the server disconnecting as I have not seen anything yet that would leave me to believe it disconnected. I never get interruptions while playing music and I have sufficient service. This really only happens when I first open the ARC app or it was in the background for a while and I opened it.
Secondly to answer your questions:
I do use VPNs and I believe another time this had happened, it was while toggling a vpn however this more recent time the VPN was not active or open on the mobile device.
The Roon Server is running on the Optiplex system mentioned before on Ubuntu LTS 22.04 as a baremetal install the only VMs present are on a separate server for storage and other services. I have no dedicated firewalls or other such enterprise security, only that which is provided in pfSense as default and I do not see anything of note in the logs.
No other device is logged out of my server machine but I do want to note that on the ARC app (at least recently) it did not completely log out of my account. I didn’t need to re-enter login credentials it just went back to the profile select or core select (sometimes it hangs here and won’t load unless I restart the app)
I had just got home and saw the prompt for the updates I will proceed with them now.
Keep me posted on what happens or this info was helpful. Thanks again!
Thank you for the quick follow-up! We’re continuing to investigate with development and have an additional follow-up:
The other times you’ve encountered this issue, were you using the same public WiFi network you mentioned in your original report? Is this a corporate or secured WiFi network with enterprise-grade protections in place?
The state you encountered (“Unauthorized” banner) is possible to reproduce with our QA team only when actual account credentials or authorizations have changed, such as with a password change or a Roon license expiration. It shouldn’t be possible due to connectivity loss in the app alone - however, if you were on a corporate-grade WiFi network imposing severe filtering, it might have been possible.
We do have a fix for the underlying state and we have some confidence it will resolve your issue. However, since your report matches the symptoms but not the mechanism, we want to gather as much detail as possible.
The other time I had encountered the issue was not on the same public WiFi network. More recently it was a school network so I am not sure exactly on their setup but it being a school they do have restrictions on certain sites I know of and they probably have DDoS protection. The other (when toggled VPN) was a hotel WiFi network, again I have no way of knowing exactly what they have but neither were flagged as insecure and hotel I do know uses a Unifi system for WiFi delivery. Perhaps they are also using unifi routers, gateways and such since many system integrators prefer to keep everything in the same brand? Regardless I did not notice as much restrictions.
It’s very odd that I would get this banner from what your team has done since I can say for certain the password has not changed.
Once again I appreciate you guys looking into this and working on a fix. When I have a moment I will try to recreate this on a home network.
Ok I have completely reinstalled the ARC app. After a few days of usage it’s been mostly working ok.
Just yesterday I believe I had the ‘Unauthorized’ banner come up again but no data was deleted, I just had to wait for the connection to improve.
Should I proceed with the extra steps or do you think it should be ok by now?
