Motorolla cable modem
Protectli router running untangle (2 vlans)
Ubiquiti 24 port POE switch
Ubiquiti nanoHD access points (3x)
Ubiquiti inwallHD access point
Ubuqiti flex mini switch
All firmware updated to latest.
Connected Audio Devices
Naim Uniti Atom - wired
Matrix Audio Mini-3 Pro - wired
Ropiee (rPi4) endpoint to Benchmarck DAC3 - wired
Apple homepod - wifi
Number of Tracks in Library
32853 tracks
Description of Issue
The core is playing music just fine to all my endpoints once I get music started. I have problems with the remotes communicating to the core reliably. I keep periodically (about once a second) losing contact with the core. This causes the remote screen to flash and reset at the top of the page I’m browsing. This happens on a wired ethernet iMac, a wifi connected imac, and a wifi connected macbook pro (M1) All running the latest macOS.
Strangely my iphone (13pro) can browse just fine for the moment.
My remotes are unusable now, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole.
It seems that if I only have one remote running on my network things are a lot better. Adding another remote causes the behavior above. Please let us know what is going on, it’s been a month of near useless remotes.
It’s been nine days and no response. It’s been over a month of unacceptable performance from my remotes. IS there any hope of a fix in the next update?
It’s now been 16 days, and zero response. My yearly subscription is up in 9 more days. The remotes are still largely unusable with no fix in sight (at least nothing being said about it). Roon has been hobbled for more than a month now. Please extend my subscription or and much more preferred, fix your networking mess.
I like your software and want to continue to use it and pay for it, but you are really dropping the ball here. Don’t forget you are competing with the competent and free iTunes (apple music) software which works flawlessly and has for the last 18 years.
Just installed build 988 on two remote machines (both intel based imacs) and the rock. Remotes still misbehave if more than one remote are running. As soon as a second remote is started the second one can’t find the core and just sits. If I quit it and restart then it finds the core and exhibits the flashing behavior shown above, and the first remote now says it can’t find the core. The remotes also crash after a short time of not finding the core.
Please reply or at least acknowledge this issue…
Sheldon, I can quite understand your frustration after near three weeks without any answer by Roon @support on this thread.
That said, I can’t remember having seen other user reports with a problem as yours, and so I would assume it has somehow to do with your particular setup (networking setup?), rather than with a manifest bug of the Roon software. I for one, as well as certainly the vast majority of Roon users, can connect with several remotes to the Core without the symptoms you describe.
This of course doesn’t mean your problem shouldn’t have been taken on by now, but it seems as if support were eternally struggling to keep pace with the support requests… I only hope you can get this sorted out soon! Good luck!
I thought it could be my network, and it very well still could be. But nothing in my network changed, only roon’s communication to the core changed (three updates ago). Every other networking protocol works flawlessly (my wife works from home full time and I’m about 75/25%. We stream apple music, we stream all our tv, both from our server as well as from the internet.
Up until now I’ve resisted doing packet sniffing and trying to reverse engineer what is happening but I may try that if things don’t get fixed soon.
Before going to such lengths, have you already had a good look at your Remotes’ Roon logs? This is what I probably would try first looking for clues…
My iPhone (13 pro) connects to my core instantly, the phone app says it’s build 970. My core is on 988. So there is something going on here. My phone connects to the more like my remotes used to, just BAM connected and ready.
My home network is more complex than some:
3x ubiquiti NanoHD access points
1x ubiquiti InWallHD access point
1 24 port poe hub
1 flex mini hub
2 vlans (one for normal computers, one for IoT crap)
Router/FW is a protectli box running untangle.
I have about 35-40 devices on the network at any one time, about 15 of them are IoT junk that I don’t trust so they are on their own VLAN. My core and many machines are static IP, anything connecting by wifi are DHCP. Remotes are a mix of wired and wireless. My mac remotes are complete basket cases. My phone has been rock solid through this mess. All devices on the LAN are IPv4.
That is a good idea, I’ve looked at both remote logs in a simple test and didn’t see anything obvious. There was one critical failure but it seemed to keep moving through it. I need to check out the logs on the core.
Sheldon, as I understand it your problem is that you can’t connect with more than only one Remote to the Core at the same time. If this is so, I would connect with Remote 1 and then try to connect with Remote 2, taking note of the exact time when this connection attempt fails. Then I would try to look for cues in the logs, both Remote 2 and server, at this point in time. Maybe you get lucky and find some meaningful cues…
Thank you for your patience here while your case reached my queue. I’ve enabled diagnostics for your Roon Core, but unfortunately, I am not seeing much clues at first glance here, except for some Airplay lost packet requests.
If you try to temporarily host the Roon Core on one of these Macs, do you still notice the same issue occur? Or only when hosted on ROCK? To switch cores, please see below instructions:
Open Roon on the other PC you wish to try as the Core
Roon Settings → General
Disconnect
On the “Choose your Core” screen, press “Use this PC”
If asked to Unauthorize, you can go ahead and do so. You are limited to one active Roon Core at a time but you are free to switch between them as often as you’d like.
Verify if the same behavior occurs on the different PC
OK, I shut down my original core (ROCK on a nuc 8i5), and made one of my iMac’s the new core. I selected my iTunes library as my new music library on this machine. I can see this core from my phone just like I should be able to, but I cannot see the core from my other iMac which is connected to the network with the same wifi that the phone is using. I have a win10 PC that can see the new core. I have an older macbook pro that CAN see the new core, and my newest M1 macbook pro cannot see the new core. All macs are on the latest MacOS. iPhone is on the latest iOS. Win10 I think is up to date as well.
Core machine IP: 192.168.1.228
Phone: 192.168.1.123
Other iMac: 192.168.1.162
M1 macbook pro: 192.168.1.143
Old Macbook Pro: 192.168.1.171
Win10: 192.168.1.106
All are on the same subnet, I can talk to them without issue in any other communication protocol.
Another data point: I went back to my ROCK core since my music is stored on the ROCK. When I open a remote on one mac, it crashes on the other, which is actually kind of handy. Since I can only use one reliably at a time.
Did you by any chance use Time Machine to restore the Roon app to your M1 Macbook? Does the M1 have any additional firewall measures, like Little Snitch, Bullguard, Kaspersky or a VPN? What happens if you try it the other way around and temporarily host the Roon core on the M1, are other remotes able to connect to it?
The entire M1 disk was restored from a time machine image of the previous macbook pro that this one replaced. I do not have any additional firewall or network filtering stuff on that machine. Same goes for the second iMac that could also not see the core.
I have a PiHole on the network, but the machines are currently not pointed at it for DNS filtering.
I have vpn capabilities (nord for anonymity when doing certain things at home) and I also have a VPN service running on my router/fw to allow me to get into my home network from elsewhere. But neither of them are active when using roon.
If Time Machine was involved, it’s possible that Roon is seeing your new M1 as the previous Macbook Pro. There’s a troubleshooting step you can try, I’ve PM’d you with more details.
To anyone playing along at home, I got a more elaborate method to delete the installed roon remotes on my macs (more than just trashing the app and reinstalling, which I had done). This seems to have done the trick for me so far. Time will tell.
Thanks to the roon folks for helping me through this.
Since I can only use one reliably at a time.