Cannot get Roon to work as a Roon core with Innuos

In Summary.

  1. On a Windows 10 PC, don’t backup the Roon Database to a folder synchronised to the OneDrive Cloud service, the OneDrive Metadata screws with the backup files.
  2. Enable SMB 1.0 in Windows 10 if the Innuos Roon Core cannot see the Windows folder where the Roon DB backup resides. Instructions for this are on Microsoft’s website where it also says “SMB1 is uninstalled by default in latest Windows 10 and Windows Server configurations.” NB. this is probably because SMB1 is insecure and was replaced by SMB2.
  3. Apparently you can use a USB backup to restore to the Innuos Zen, but I couldn’t get this to work. Restoring directly from the PC using a network share works fine, so long as you don’t make the mistake in point 1.
  4. Restore the backup to the Zen Mini Roon Core without logging in first - click the restore backup link on the login page
  5. If your music library resides on the Innuos device (most likely), the Innuos Roon Core may import it as a new library, ignoring the restored Roon DB playlists, favourites, tags, play counts, ratings etc. Disable the “new” music library folder added automatically by Roon and click “Edit” on the old network share restored from the Windows 10 core backup and point it manually at the Music Library using the Innuos Zen Mini IP address followed by \music EG. type in: \\192.168.x.xx\music to the Roon network share dialogue.
  6. Finally, do not believe any Roon user who tells you the Innous systems do not have enough power to run a Roon Core. This is utter nonsense for every-day use. However, this is a well documented issue if you use Roon for heavy DSP processing or multi-room DSP processing. For that you need a dedicated PC/Mac/Roon Nucleus. Also, for a pain free Roon experience, get a dedicated server like an Intel NUC/Mac Mini or Roon Nucleus.

If none of this makes sense send a message to @Rugby because he is a genius. All his posts here are worth reviewing. In particular…

I would never have bothered with all this angst, time wasting and messing around if Roon wasn’t such an amazing service/system. I can’t wait to get back to it now because I absolutely love using it and cannot extol all it’s virtues enough.

However, running the risk of hate mail here, Roon needs to sort out the setup process, it’s a mess. It wasn’t easy on my Windows 10 PC in the first place, then moving the Core Backup to my Innuos system was even worse. Roon assume too much user networking knowledge and the knowledge base is lacking for everyday users and inaccessible/not in context (error messages are unhelpful). I have plenty of friends who would love Roon, but I hesitate recommending it to any of them because they wouldn’t have the patience or want to purchase a dedicated server without trying Roon first.

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Personally, I believe Roon backup’s should be scheduled on a regular basis to an attached USB HDD. That seems to work well and is readily available to be moved to any device where you may want or need to do a restore.

@Jim_F However, that didn’t work for me. The Innuos Roon core could not see it at all. It could see the USB drive before the backup was either copied to it from the Windows machine, or backed up directly onto it from the Windows machine. But afterwards, the USB drive just would not show up on the Innuos. No idea why.

Edit: You make a good point though. I have no idea where I am going to backup the DB to now. I’m ditching my old Windows machine. I will have to use a USB stick. I would think as the backup will be made from the Innuos Roon Core, it will be readable by it.

I’m sure it was just a matter of getting the correct file path typed in. At least, that’s my guess.

I’ve only used my Nucleus backup once to restore Roon to my Dell XPS 15 just for synchronization purposes. I don’t remember the path, but it was not an issue IIFC.

You may well be right. I have no idea what that path would be though.

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