Yesterday when I had Tidal with Roon, I saw all my albums in Roon arc in CarPlay. Last night, I switched from Tidal to Qobuz. Now Roon has all of my albums coming from Qobuz. What’s strange, Roon arc in my car using CarPlay only show a few albums by the artist. It’s not CarPlay, everything worked fine yesterday.
Also, if I use Roon arc on my iPhone, I see all the albums by the artist and if I initiate play thru my iPhone with Roon arc, all albums play thru CarPlay.
This seems to be by design. ARC on the phone shows everything, but through CarPlay it only shows a selection of stuff. I haven’t looked at enough to figure out what, maybe most recently added or played only. I’d guess it’s to make it less overwhelming on the CarPlay screen. Just my thoughts.
Hi Chris, I don’t think it’s because of the screen limits because when I use other apps (iTunes/music app), it will show all albums. Also the albums that ARC shows are all over the place, not the 1st albums bought nor is it the latest released albums.
One more thing, I like to use the RADIO function for the artist but when I do, it pretty much plays the same tracks from the same artists. Too bad that it can’t use the same radio code that runs on Roon core because that seems much more random and I don’t remember of it repeating like ARC does.
CarPlay does the same thing with Deezer as well. It’s annoying and I just think it is a limitation within the poorly built CarPlay app. There are a few issues with the software that hasn’t been fixed and seem like they will still be present for years to come. I wonder if Apple is moving to the same system idea of the Android Car software GM is starting to use.
Thank you for your post. There are sorting limitations to the user interface for Album list view, as other users have posted, with Apple’s integration. There’s a resulting sorting order mismatch between Roon Remote and Roon ARC on many CarPlay head unit displays. If you try adjusting font size or other available UI settings on the display unit or within the phone and ARC, it might change the display slightly.
ARC receives the radio stream directly from the RoonServer - there’s no separate algorithm controlling track selection for Roon Radio in the mobile app. The product team is investigating discrepancies and strange behavior within Roon Radio over here: Roon Radio repeats songs multiple times [Roon Investigating]. If you can provide an example of a track that is repeating more often than it should in Roon Radio, this is especially helpful we pinpoint the issue in logs.
You’ll need to specify the issue here a little more precisely - is the concern that CarPlay remains tied to the phone’s audio system output via the Bluetooth connection even when you’re outside the car? Or are you concerned that all Albums are queuing when you select Play Now when CarPlay is set as the output Zone?
We’ll keep a lookout for your response. Thank you!
Hi Connor, a few clarifications. If I compare all the artist albums that are displayed using the CarPlay ARC screen vs. using the ARC screen on my Iphone, I’m only seeing 1/2 of the albums on CarPlay whereas I see all albums on the iPhone. I wish CarPlay would show all the albums too. As a reference, if I use Apple Music app on CarPlay, it shows all the artist albums that I also see on the iPhone. Also, it’s not a restriction on CarPlay because carplay shows more albums on the screen under music than arc does.
As for the radio function in ARC in the car for a specific artist, I get a couple random songs from the artist in the beginning of playback, but then I get the same songs from the same LIKE artists after that, they might be played back in a different order. For example, I issue the radio option for artist Dream Theater, the 1st couple songs will be from Dream Theater, usually different than the last listening session, then it will always play Sons of Apollo’s Divine Addiction, then another artist with the same song that was played in all the other radio sessions.
Another difference between CarPlay arc and arc on my iPhone: ARC using CarPlay will play a couple of dream theater songs then go into playing other artists whereas if I use ARC on my iPhone in radio mode for dream theater, it will play dozens of dream theater songs, all random, and within these tests, it never tried to play another artist. I do have 20 or more Dream Theater albums in roon so it should take some time to play another artist if it goes thru all of the requested artists songs 1st.
Thanks