Can't see Chromecast Audio in Roon [Ticket open]

Hello,
I have also a Chrome Cast Audio for a few months. In the beginning, it was working seamlessly, but for a few weeks, impossible to see it again with Ron. I can say that nothing has changed in my network and that I use it perfectly with the Tidal App on my iPhone. Very strange…
If you have some ideas?
Kind regards,Augustin

Hello @ghyduart,

I have split your post as to better assist here. Can you please provide an overview of your network and core using this thread as a guide?

Specifically, please let me know your Router model/manufacturer and the mode/manufacturer for any switches/range extenders/powerline adapters/ect.

How is your Core connected to the networking gear? Are you using Ethernet or WiFi? How is your Chromecast Audio connected, do you by any chance have the Ethernet adapter for it?

Thanks,
Noris

Hello Noris,
My network has some complexity, so I will try to be as clear as possible. First, it’s a layer 2 network, i.e. with only one subnet (192.168.1.0/24) and no routing (except for Internet).
Here is the network diagram:
– R8500 <–> R7000 – Roon SRV
Internet – Router |
– CPL <–> CPL – Chromecast
The Chromecast is connected with an Ethernet Adapter (UGREEN) that is connected to the Router by CPL (@250Mbps)
The Roon Server is connected to the router by a dedicated WiFi Bridge (@1300Gbps).

Here is the different products:

  • Netgear R8500: 3 band Wifi router (2 x 5GHz + 2.4GHz) in mode AP only (no routing activated) - version 1.0.2.122 (up-to-date)
  • Netgear R7000: Mode Bridge only connected @1300Gbps to one of the two 5GHz band of the R8500 – version V1.0.9.42 (up-to-date)
  • 2 x CPL Devolo dLAN 500 AV - connection speed > 250Mbps – version 5.3.1.03-3 (up-to-date)
  • Router: BBox Miami Bouygues Telecom (French Internet Provider) with fiber link (200Mbps/1Gbps Up/Down)

I can add that I also have some issues to connect to the Roon server with my iOS APP. I often have to try multiple times before it works.

I hope it will help. Let me know if you need something else.
Kind regards,
Augustin

Hello @ghyduart,

Thanks for letting me know that setup information. I have a few thoughts regarding your setup:

  • You mentioned that you’re making use of CPL dLAN devices which appear to be powerline based. Does the same behavior still occur if you temporarily connect your Chromecast devices directly to the same Access Point that your Core uses? If so I believe the powerline adapters may be at fault (possibly due to a version update).

  • For all of these networking devices, is Multicast enabled? Multicast is a required aspect of device discovery and as such I would make sure that it is enabled for all of the networking gear in the chain from Roon -> Endpoint. Our Networking Best Practices Guide provides some settings that could be useful, but specifically for the Netgear APs, I would take a look for “Enable Multicast Routing”, or “IGMP Proxying” or “IGMP Snooping” and see if toggling this setting helps. I would only start toggling these settings after you have confirmed that the powerline adapters or a specific AP is causing issues here, this setting may be available on the powerline adapters as well.

  • The router you have is an ISP provided one, and we have often seen issues with ISP provided routers and do not recommend them being the device handling the IP addressing nor the traffic. If you are able to place the router into Brdige Mode and have one of the Netgears take care of IP addresses/Multicast this will be a good test.

  • You mentioned that you are having issues with the iOS device itself as well, this sign also points to Multicast discovery.

  • As a last resort: Simplify and then rebuild. I would temporarily take out everything from the equation that is not critical, and leave just the Modem, one of your Routers and then connect the Core, Chromecasts and a Roon remote to that router, do you still have issues? If so we have narrowed down that one of the other networking devices are causing the issues here. I would then add them back one at a time and see exactly where the communication chain breaks.

Please let me know if my above suggestions help and if you have other questions/concerns while going through my suggestions, just let me know.

Thanks,
Noris

I run a Netgear R7000 router as a WiFi AP, and I managed to screw up my Roon setup by ticking a box in its WiFi management panel, “Enable Smart Connect”. Turns out the various devices, including CCA and iPad and various Chromecast-capable speakers, were then somehow choosing different radios (or bands?), and Roon often couldn’t see them. Turned that off, and things went back to normal working fine.

1 Like

Hello @Bill_Janssen,

Thanks for letting me know that this issue was due to “Enable Smart Connect” on your Netgear R7000! Please let me know if you experience any other issues with that setting turned off, otherwise I have set an auto-close timer for this topic and will discuss with the team if we can document that setting in our router notes.

Thanks,
Noris

@noris, I wasn’t the original poster! I was just adding to his topic as a bit of information because his situation sounded vaguely similar to what he’s describing! So please continue with the support request until Augustin is happy!

@Bill_Janssen,

Thanks for clarifying that, I seem to have mixed up your reports a bit :microscope:. I have re-opened this thread for @ghyduart and am awaiting his feedback, thanks for letting me know!

– Noris

Hello,

Thanks Bill for sharing your experience. Unfortunately it’s not my case because Smart Connect was already disable.

Otherwise I tested to connect the ChromeCast directly on the same switch as the Roon server. It was detected immediately. Unfortunately I’ve got a new issue: every single song I play on it is blocked at 58s :thinking:. Incomprehensible!

So now, on top of the multicast issue, I have the soon to be famous 58s bug.

Noris, come to my help :smile:!

Hello @ghyduart,

Thanks for confirming that connecting the Chromecast Audio to the same switch as the Roon Server has resolved the detection of the device. You mentioned that every single song stops at 58 seconds in? Have you tried rebooting the Core and Chromecast after connecting it to the new switch?

Additionally, I have gone ahead and enabled diagnostics mode for your account and what this action will do is next time your Core is active, a set of logs will automatically be generated and uploaded to our servers for analysis.

I kindly ask for you to reproduce the issue once more after rebooting everything and note the exact local time in your country that you notice this behavior (ex. 3:39PM). I can then cross-reference the diagnostics to see if there are any errors at that time. Please let me know this information when possible.

Thanks,
Noris

Hello Noris,
I’ve just rebooted the server and Chromecast as asked.
The strange behavior happened at 10:21PM, my local time.
Hope it will help.

Hello @ghyduart,

Thanks for confirming that timestamp for me. I have taken a look at the logs and all signs point to the network causing the issues here. It appears that your iPad also disconnected at exactly the same time the chromecast stopped playing. Does this same issue happen with all songs and is consistently reproducible?

I propose a test here: can you please connect your Core and Chromecast directly into the router and see if you still experience the same issue? Please let me know if there is any change by connecting that way.

Thanks,
Noris

Hello @noris,
I will not be able to connect the Roon server directly to the router, it would to much hassle.
And to be honest I don’t any reason why my network will disconnect my iPad and Chromecast at 58s of each song. I’ve just tried this morning with a web radio and the behavior is the same.
Do you have another lead?
Kind regards,
Augustin

Augustin, the issue is honestly pointing to your local network topology as you say if you connect the CCA to the same switch as Roon server, it works fine. If the connection is interrupted, you may enjoy 58 seconds of buffered traffic before it fails. Perhaps the diagnostics mode log files can pin point the issue? Also, make sure the CCA firmware is up to date.

Hello @ghyduart,

I have started a case for you with our QA team who will take a closer look at the diagnostics. Still though, it would be good if you could temporarily test the behavior with both devices connected directly to the router as a test to uncover another data point as I am seeing lost packets in your network connection when streaming to the device. I will be sure to let you know QA’s thoughts on this matter after it reaches their queue.

Thanks,
Noris

Hello @noris,

I have done some test and I have some good news.
I tried to play different type of files:

  • Web radio => stop at 58s
  • Tidal => stop at 58s
  • Local files (44kHz) => stop at 58s
  • Local files (88kHz) => no issue

This last successful test remind me that I have enabled the Sample Rate Conversion in the DSP.
Bingo! When I disabled this option, all went back to normal.

So you can say to QA to look in the conversion module.
Let me know if you need me for further tests.

Kind regards,
Augustin

Hello @ghyduart,

Thanks for letting me know your findings. That does seem like strange behavior to me and we will take a look, I have just checked our diagnostics system and it appears that the most recent report with your above test has not reached our servers yet, can you please confirm that the machine is powered on and connected to the internet?

Also, do you by any chance recall around what time and date you ran these tests? It would be useful to know a timestamp so that we can take a closer look in that direction (or even which tracks you tried with). Please let me know this info when possible.

Thanks,
Noris

Hello @ghyduart,

I wanted to touch base with some good news, which is that our technical team has been able to reproduce the reported behavior and we’ve opened up a bug report with our developers. They noted that this issue happens more often when using “Max PCM - power of 2” buffer size, so if you are using this DSP setting you may want to turn it off and verify behavior afterwards.

While I can’t say for certain when this bug will be fixed, getting things reproduced in-house is a critical first step, and I will keep this thread up to date as the team passes along feedback and work begins to get this resolved. Thanks again for the report!

– Noris

Hello @noris,
Thank you for your feedback. I’m happy that your developers were able to reproduce the behavior.
Let me know if you need some help from my part, I would try to find the time to do so.
Kind regards,
Augustin

1 Like

Hello @ghyduart,

I wanted to touch base with some good news and let you know that we have just released Roon version 1.6 which addresses this issue. I would update your Core to our latest version and see if this helps, do let me know how it goes!

Thanks,
Noris