Can't select the new Nucleus as the Core

Christopher_Korody · June 24, 2020, 6:54pm

I have been running Roon Core on my iMac OS10.15.5. Been working great. So of course I went and got a Nucleus.

I got the new Nucleus up and running yesterday with no problems, did the update, installed and populated a 2Tb SSD but I could not see any of the saved Tidal media.

NOTE The iMac/former Core is/was connected by WiFi to the end point (Oppo 205) The Oppo and the Nucleus are both hardwired to the router - can’t physically wire to the router from the iMac.

I now know I made a mistake when I did not do a forced back up before I did the migration. This is because your instructions are not presented in a simple linear fashion. Anyway I “reset” the Roon database on the Nucleus (later I learned that this has nothing to do with the media.)

I now think I understand that wiped out the connection back to the iMac. The problem now is that I cannot select the Nucleus Core at startup. I can see it fine using the Configure Devices link but it is not offered as a choice at startup. The only choice is the iMac.

I have also quit Roon on the iMac. The Nucleus is on. When I use the remote app on the iPhone and the iPad both only offer the iMac as a choice.

Per the instructions I renamed the old Roon folder in the Library ‘Roon-old’, and installed a new copy of the app. Makes no difference.

Meanwhile I found a large Tidal folder on another drive so will try to import that once things get going again.

But first things first, how do I get to select Nucleus as the Core? Is there a way to just restore Nucleus to it’s virgin delivery state so I can start the process over?

Thanks

noris · June 25, 2020, 12:36am

Hi @Christopher_Korody,

It sounds like there are a lot of things going on here so let’s start with this:

Can you confirm you have any backup of your iMac from before this migration?

What does your Web UI show when you open it up? Can you please share a screenshot of what you see there (with all the info present)?

Where did you rename this? On the iMac or on the Nucleus? If it was on the iMac, in this case, that would have been your old database. Be careful not to delete this if you don’t have any recent backups.

What do you mean by “large TIDAL folder”? Is this folder with FLAC tracks you have imported from TIDAL?

Christopher_Korody · June 26, 2020, 8:18pm

Hi Noris - I replied via email since I got a version of this - in case you didn’t get it here is is again

Thanks for getting back to me - sorry I couldn’t reply till now

Look forward to hearing from you

Can you confirm you have any backup of your iMac from before this migration?

Hi - yes I have multiple copies of the backup from June 20 so probably not a significant difference in the data set

The problem now is that I cannot select the Nucleus Core at startup. I can see it fine using the Configure Devices link but it is not offered as a choice at startup. The only choice is the iMac.

What does your Web UI show when you open it up? Can you please share a screenshot of what you see there (with all the info present)?

see attached - this is on launch of the Roon app on the desktop

I’ve also attached the Configure link and the Nucleus screen

Korody Screen Shot 2020-06-25 at 15.48.10.png

Korody Nucleus Configure.png.pngKorody Nucleus screen shot - Screen Shot 2020-06-25 at 19.48.48.png
Christopher_Korody:
Per the instructions I renamed the old Roon folder in the Library ‘Roon-old’, and installed a new copy of the app. Makes no difference.

Where did you rename this? On the iMac or on the Nucleus? If it was on the iMac, in this case, that would have been your old database. Be careful not to delete this if you don’t have any recent backups.

It is named separately Roon 2 isa the old one - see shot of App folder

Korody App folder Screen Shot 2020-06-25 at 15.50.27.png

What do you mean by “large TIDAL folder”? Is this folder with FLAC tracks you have imported from TIDAL?

See screen shot - about 354Mb Also shot of open folder - Doesn’t look like FLAC to me - One of the things that would be helpful is a file checklist - as in find these before you start - where are the FLAC files?

Screen Shot 2020-06-25 at 15.53.50.png

noris · June 30, 2020, 12:32am

Hi @Christopher_Korody,

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you here, I was out of the office for a few days. It doesn’t look like any of your screenshots came through, can you please re-upload them to the forum by using these instructions? You would need to click on the “upload screenshot” button for the images to actually go through:

Christopher_Korody · July 1, 2020, 8:46pm

Christopher_Korody · July 1, 2020, 9:44pm

Images have been uploaded

noris · July 2, 2020, 8:38pm

Hi @Christopher_Korody,

Thanks for the images!

I am not sure what you intend to do with this TIDAL Copy folder, but it is not part of the Roon app. If you have downloads saved offline, you would only need to point Roon to the location of the files themselves.

The issue here is that you have the Nucleus named as “iMac”. Not sure how this managed to happen, but you can see that it says Nucleus underneath the name. I would connect to it and then change the name of the Core from iMac to Nucleus under Roon Settings -> Setup:

Christopher_Korody · July 3, 2020, 5:26pm

Hi Noris @support -

Not sure how it happened either, but I have followed the steps and changed it. Thanks for making that easy. BTW I have also unauthorized the iMac Core.

Questions:

I don’t understand if when I “Add to Library” in Roon it creates an actual physical file or if it is just a pointer? If it is a physical file, do I want to import that into Roon? And if so where might that be?
I do download from Tidal to my iPhone - largely the same material I add to Roon. Do I want to import from the iPhone to Roon? (assuming that’s possible)
Is there anyway to merge the Roon library on the iMac with the Roon library on the Nucleus? I’ve been bouncing back and forth and I add a lot of stuff from Tidal. Or do I have to reimport?

Thanks for your help and have a bang up Fourth

best,
ck

noris · July 6, 2020, 2:42pm

Hi @Christopher_Korody,

Hope you had a great fourth celebration!

That’s good news!

When you add an item to your Roon library, it saves it in the Roon database. You can’t manually link to a single database file, but you can create a database on one computer and then use Roon’s built-in Backup manager to move that database around via a restore when needed.

Your media needs to be accessible by the Nucleus which means it either needs to reside:

On the Nucleus itself (SDD/attached HDD)
On a NAS location (like a networked HDD or another PC if you have sharing set up)
On the streaming services themselves (files are not saved from streaming services, but streamed in real-time).

Have you been saving tracks to your Roon Database or to your TIDAL Library? These are two different aspects, and if you are saving tracks, you’ll want to ensure you’re saving them to your Nucleus database. You can still use your iMac, but in this case, it wouldn’t be the Core anymore, it would just be a Roon controller for the Nucleus. If you want to move your database off the Nucleus at a later point our Migration Knowledge Base Article can help with that aspect.

Christopher_Korody · July 8, 2020, 4:25pm

Hi - OK thnx all clear but for two things.

Before we got this straight, I was running two Cores - one on the iMac and one on the Nucleus. Now past all that thnx.

But during this time I was adding Tidal content to Roon using the “Add to Library” function in Roon to both Cores. There are things added to the iMac core that are not on the final in use Nucleus core. Is there a way to merge them so I don’t lose the “adds” that are unique to the iMac?

In a listening session the other evening, the music simply stopped playing a few times. I could restart it from any of the remotes (iPad and iMac). The stopping didn’t seem to have anything to do with which remote I was using. Both were controlling the Nucleus. Is that a streaming problem from Tidal or something local and if so what is the fix?

Thanks

Geoff_Coupe · July 8, 2020, 4:56pm

Under normal circumstances, when you add a Tidal (or Qobuz) album or track to your Roon Library, then they will be also marked as Tidal (or Qobuz) “Favourites” in the streaming service. Providing you are using the same Tidal account in your Nucleus as you did for the Roon Core on your iMac, then these Tidal favourites should be automatically synced to your Nucleus and appear in your new Library.

Can you give an example of a Tidal album that was in your iMac Library, but has not appeared in your Nucleus Library?

noris · July 8, 2020, 10:43pm

Hi @Christopher_Korody,

As @Geoff_Coupe mentioned, if these were also favorited in TIDAL or Qobuz, then you should be able to access them through your TIDAL/Qobuz favorites tab.

There is no way to merge two Roon databases, so if you made changes that apply to just the local library (for example you added tracks to a Roon playlist), then you would need to do a backup + restore from the Core with the latest info and manually re-add the missing tracks.

Christopher_Korody · July 9, 2020, 4:53am

Thanks Geoff - indeed when I open Tidal I see that every album is marked with a heart as a Favorite. When I look for them in Roon I see each album with the word Library or in some cases Library/Tidal. So apparently they were automatically syncced. I do not understand the distinction between Library/Tidal - I had assumed that Library indicated things that had been imported and were being stored on the internal Nucleus SSD (eg iTunes) Since they are just pointers I guess it doesn’t matter.

Christopher_Korody · July 9, 2020, 4:56am

Hi Noris - see my comment below to @Geoff_Coupe. I very much appreciate the elegant solution provided - I was dreading having to manually re-add the missing tracks. Thanks again for your patience.

noris · July 10, 2020, 2:04am

Hi @Christopher_Korody,

It sounds like the issue is resolved, is this correct? If so, that is great news indeed! Just let me know and I’ll close this thread out.