Cannot connect ARC, although Roon app shows ARC as being able to connect

Support ARC: Port Forwarding Help
1

Roon Server Machine

Intel NUC5i3MYHE : Roon Core (Roon 2.0 OS) : 16GB RAM : 120GB SSD : 2.1GHz

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Virgin Media Hub 3.0, connected via Ethernet cable

  1. Who is your internet service provider?
    Virgin Media

  2. Please list the make and model of your modem and router?
    Virgin Media Hub 3.

  3. Do you have any additional network hardware, like additional routers or managed switches?
    NETGEAR 8 Port Gigabit Network Switch (GS308) - connected to Virgin Hub 3.0
    HAP Lite VPN router - connected to Netgear switch

  4. Does your network have any VPNs, proxy servers, or enterprise-grade security?
    Separate VPN router connected to netgear switch.

Connected Audio Devices

Blusound Node 2i connected to Virgin Hub by ethernet cable.

Description of Issue -

What is the exact port forwarding error message you see in the Roon Settings → ARC tab?

Trying to connect ARC, which is installed on an iPhone 11. iOS version 17.2.1
I can only connect ARC when on the same network as my ROCK. When trying to connect using 4G, I face the issues shown in the screenshots shown.

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When trying to connect ARC on iPhone I first see this message.

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Which then changes to this message.

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Then this message.
The Roon app states that ARC is able to connect:

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Virgin Hub shows ARC as having been automatically connected:

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4

Hi @Willie_Melville,

Are you able to clarify your network topology and where you’ve hardwired your ROCK in this setup?

The port test pings a server upstream via the TCP rule you’ve configured and then listens for a reply - it doesn’t test the downstream connection to the phone itself via your cellular connection. Do you have a VPN configured on the phone, as well?

5

Hi Connor,

My network set-up is:

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My ROCK is hardwired to the Virgin Hub

Thanks

6

I had 2 VPN apps on my phone which were not enabled, but I have deleted them for the time being.

7

Hi Connor,

Was the diagram that I posted what you were looking for?

8

@connor sorry I didn’t realise that I had to @ you. Hopefully my post was what you were looking for

9

Hi Connor,

My network set-up is:

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image4032Ă—3024 2.25 MB

My ROCK is hardwired to the Virgin Hub

Thanks

10

Hi Connor,

I’ve no idea why, but ARC is now connecting to my ROCK via a cellular connection.

11

Hi @connor,

ARC is no longer connecting - it connected while I was at home, with wi-fi on my phone switched off, but it now won’t connect.

12

Hi Connor,

Are you able to help?

13

Hi @Willie_Melville,

Thank you for your patience. What is the most recent diagnostic message in Roon → Settings → ARC? Does the port test still list “Ready”?

An intermittent connection like you’ve described leaves the following possibilities:

  1. The cellular signal is simply insufficient to sync with RoonServer on the go. This is highly unlikely unless you live in a rural area. Do you ever receive a “Poor Connection” or similar banner before ARC stops connecting when you’re using a cellular connection?

  2. The upstream signal from RoonServer on your ROCK is encountering interference. If this unit is hardwired to the ROCK without a second router upstream, then network security or antivirus software might be responsible. The port test reaches the internet, but TCP audio streams might encounter different throttling.

Do you have any quality of service or prioritization settings in the Virgin Hub you can use to offer the ROCK more bandwidth?

  1. The last possibility is that ARC is retaining some cached session IDs due to the VPNs offering multiple network paths. You’ve uninstalled them completely but continue to have problems - have you uninstalled ARC as well, just to test?

Thank you again for your patience, and we’ll follow up from there.

14

Thank you for your patience. What is the most recent diagnostic message in Roon → Settings → ARC? Does the port test still list “Ready”?

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An intermittent connection like you’ve described leaves the following possibilities:

  1. The cellular signal is simply insufficient to sync with RoonServer on the go. This is highly unlikely unless you live in a rural area. Do you ever receive a “Poor Connection” or similar banner before ARC stops connecting when you’re using a cellular connection?

Cell signal isn’t an issue, although, I have never been able to connect to ARC via a cellular signal - this is what I see in ARC just now, after syncing ARC via Wi-Fi.

IMG_4863

  1. The upstream signal from RoonServer on your ROCK is encountering interference. If this unit is hardwired to the ROCK without a second router upstream, then network security or antivirus software might be responsible. The port test reaches the internet, but TCP audio streams might encounter different throttling.

Do you have any quality of service or prioritization settings in the Virgin Hub you can use to offer the ROCK more bandwidth?

I’ve no idea, is there anything in particular that i should look for in the router settings?

  1. The last possibility is that ARC is retaining some cached session IDs due to the VPNs offering multiple network paths. You’ve uninstalled them completely but continue to have problems - have you uninstalled ARC as well, just to test?

Yes, several times

15

Hi @Willie_Melville,

Thank you again for your patience. We’ve provided clarifiaction below:

These settings are often called Quality of Service (QoS) or bandwidth prioritization. The NUC network adapter, the router, any managed switches are all negotiating amongst themselves for access to bandwidth in the upstream connection. Sometimes, settings in the router will favor the wrong device in this setup.

However, before we move forward, I’m afraid we’ll need to clarify something in your most recent post.

Earlier, you mentioned ARC had connected successfully, although intermittently, for a few days.

The distinction does merit scrutiny since a cellular connection at any time means that the port forwarding you’ve set up through your Virgin Hub is, in fact, successful.

When RoonServer starts up, it will greet the upstream router to look for an open port to reach Roon’s own servers. If either UPnP or a port forwarding rule offers such a port to RoonServer, then it will ping our servers and listen for a response in the downstream internet connection. This is the port test you see in Roon Settings → ARC. If RoonServer hears a response from our servers to the port ping, it will display “Ready,” as is the case with your own RoonServer above.

This is then the address ARC uses to reach RoonServer.

If the address of your RoonServer machine changes for any reason in the meantime, ARC won’t have a way to find it until you re-run the port test and advertise the new location to ARC and to Roon’s servers.
If your RoonServer machine is also negotiating a connection to a second router via VPN, then the path will be constantly changing back and forth. If you haven’t set up a static IP for RoonServer, the Virgin Hub might even be generating a new local IP address for RoonServer each time you disconnect/reconnect.

Is this ROCK able to connect via the VPN router via WiFi? I suspect that might be the vulnerable point in the diagram you presented above, as it would expose you to the scenario laid out above.

16

Hi Connor,

I believe that I was under the impression that ARC was connected to my ROCK, but in fact it was only showing the content that was downloaded when I synced ARC via Wi-Fi, although I can’t be certain.

I’ve just tried connecting to Roon via my VPN router, without any issues.

17

Hi @Willie_Melville,

Thank you for the post. If you temporarily disable the WiFi on the VPN router or turn off the ROCK’s connection to it, leaving only the Virgin ethernet connection active, are you then able to connect to ARC on your WiFi network? What about the cellular network if you disable WiFi?

Our goal is to test the “chain” with ROCK → Virgin router → Internet → ARC, so see if the port forward you’ve created is successful.

18

Hi Connor,

I’m on holiday until 20/03/2023 - I’ll give it a try when I return.

Thanks for your help

1 Like
19

Hi @Willie_Melville,

We hope you had a relaxing holiday. I’ve set this thread to remain open for several more days to give you a chance to test the steps above at your convenience. If it happens to have auto-closed before you can respond, please create a new topic thread and I’ll merge/reopen.

20

Hi Connor,

I can connect to ARC via my Virgin router but not via a cellular connection.

21

Hi @Willie_Melville,

Now that we’ve verified the ROCK doesn’t have an active network interface pointing to the VPN router, we should be able to create a port forwarding rule in the Virgin Hub. This particular router doesn’t play well with UPnP/NAT-PMP autoconfiguration in the experience of users on this forum.

Most Virgin Hub users have had to create a manual port forwarding rule pointing to a port other than 55000, like 55002 or another integer outside that range.

Have you created a manual rule at this point? Please share a screenshot if applicable. Thanks!

22

Hi Connor,

Port forwarding rule:

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