Core playing through remote PC

I’ve been using KEF LS50 wireless for about a year with minimal problems. Now, after a few days without use, my audio setup is missing. It appears I got upgrades from both Roon and Microsoft. KEFs are not detected as I try to reconfigure.

Running Windows 10 64 bit for core, direct USB to the KEFs. They play fine through optical (TV), and also play Tidal fine without Roon, through the USB. I use another Windows laptop for remote control, and also occasionally an Iphone.

After trying to reestablish audio setup, when I attempt to play through Roon, using the core PC directly. I can select either System Output zone or wasapi Zone, and in both instances music plays through the internal speakers of my remote control laptop.
The remote computer was once my core, but I cured that long ago. The remote computer correctly identifies my current dedicated core PC, and I have not changed it.

Core PC and KEF are wired direct to my network, with USB from core to KEF. Remote laptop is wireless to the network.

What am I missing?

Hello @Neal_Harvey,

Thanks for contacting support, I’d be happy to look over this issue you are facing and suggest some possible troubleshooting steps but firstly, I would like to confirm a few points with you.
• You mention that your “audio setup is missing”, does this mean that you do not see the KEF speakers at all as an audio zone in Roon under Setting -> Audio? Furthermore, if it shows up there can you please confirm that it is enabled?
• Does the KEF LS50 show up under your Windows Playback devices? You can check this by navigating to Control Panel -> Sound -> Playback Devices.
• Can you please try to temporarily disable your Anti-virus firewall to see if they show up? The RAAT protocol uses network discovery and a firewall can prevent the Roon app from discovering the KEF even if they are connected directly through USB.

Please let me know when possible and we can continue from there.

Thanks,
Noris

Hi and thank you Noris. I am pretty busy so I apologize for how long this takes. I just hope that we get through it before I leave town for a while next week. But if not, no fault of yours. I’m in and out.

I’ll flesh this out a little more. My Core PC is named “Roon Dell”. My control PC is named “Nanco”.

When I say “audio is missing”, what I mean is that there are “no output devices detected” on the core. I’ve attached a screen shot from the core. A this point, Roon is not running on the control PC (Nanco), but the KEFs are powered up, USB connected to Core, and recognized by Windows on the Core. I have a shot of that too.

Now, when I open Roon on the control PC, the Core sees Nanco as a playback device. From the Core, while trying to set something up that worked, I fiddled with System Output and also a zone I named KEF wasapi, both of which I attempted to set up from the Core, not realizing that I was fiddling with Nanco. I’m not sure I could reproduce that setup process, but if I select either zone, the music I have initiated directly on the core plays out of the control PC’s (Nanco’s) internal speakers. If you’re wondering, the KEFs showing as not found (on Nanco) were not set up by me recently. In my early days, I used Nanco as my core. But I later reconfigured it as a control PC. It properly sees the Core as Roon Dell, and has worked as a remote control for a long time.

I spent some time trying the firewall experiment. (BTW, I use Avast for antivirus and Windows for firewall) A little trouble with that at first, because the Window’s feature update was incomplete and the UI was not as shown in current on line documentation. After another (prompted) restart, which completed the Windows update, that resolved and I was able to turn off the firewall and reopen Roon on the core. I did this with the control PC shut down. It did not change anything. Turning on the remote control PC caused it to be recognized by the core as a network playback device, as described earlier.

I looked further into the Windows firewall. At the app level, Roon is shown as an allowed firewall exception. At the detail level, incoming Roon executables are allowed specifically for TCP and for UDP (two entries); but for outgoing traffic, I saw no Roon exceptions. I am assuming that the Roon executables cover RAAT, meaning it does not need some sort of separate exception. But I was a bit surprised to see no exceptions for Roon for outgoing traffic. Anyway, this is probably not relevant because turning off the firewall did not help.

That’s where I am now.

Before all this happened, I had some playlists in Roon. Interestingly, they’re still there.

Any ideas?
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Core%20Sees%20the%20Control%20PC%20as%20a%20device%20to%20play%20on

You’re going to want to make sure you have exceptions in place for RAATServer as well.

This still feels like firewall to me, but @noris will be able to work with you on this until things are resolved. Thanks for your patience @Neal_Harvey!

Hello @Neal_Harvey,

Thank You for your detailed reply, and I apologize about the slight delay in getting back to you here as well. As Mike said, you will need to have a separate exception in place for the RAATServer as well if it’s a firewall issue, and I would like you to add it as an exception first to see if that changes anything.

My first follow-up question after that is, are you able to play any non-Roon music to the KEFs at all from the Core? As in, if you try to play something from Youtube and have the KEFs selected as the output from your system, not using Roon at all, are you able to hear the music on your KEF speakers? Do you by any chance know if you have the latest firmware for your KEF speakers and the latest USB driver on your computer? I have been looking over the KEF site and they have a link to download USB Audio drivers and firmware here.

If you can confirm that it is just Roon that you are having difficulties playing sound to and playing music through the system otherwise works (e.g. Youtube without Roon) then I can suggest that you do a “refresh” of your RAATServer. You can do a refresh of your RAATServer by first closing out of the Roon App, then navigating to C:\Users\YOUR_NAME_HERE\AppData\Local and deleting the “RAATServer” folder. To get to the AppData folder you may need to enable “Show Hidden Files and Folders in Windows Explorer under File -> Options -> View. After you have deleted it, restart Roon and a new RAATServer folder will be generated. I have included a screenshot of what this process should look like here:

If you are still having difficulties after refreshing the RAATServer, can I ask you to please open your “Device Manager” and see if the KEFs show up there? Please provide a screenshot of the “Sound, Video and Game Controllers” of your device manager, I am posting an example of what mine looks like here:

I hope this helps and are able to solve the issue but if not, please let me know your findings from the steps above and we can continue from there.

Thanks,
Noris

Hello Noris,

As promised, I was out of town for over a month, and was slow and hesitant to get back into the Roon debug. Memory and all. But in the end, your suggestion led me to the finish line.

So I reaffirmed my problems, re-read your suggestion above, and went ahead and deleted the RAAT Server folder in my user app data, hoping that Roon would regenerate it properly as you suggested. Result: No change to my problem (no detection of my audio device).

However, this led me check that Roon had indeed regenerated my RAAT Server folder. It had not. This led me to believe my install was hopelessly corrupted. To add insult, I had a flawed approach to backups, so I took screen shots of all my playlists before uninsallinig Roon.

Beautifully, Roon gave me the option of retaining my data files on uninstall, so I saw no downside to trying that. My reinstall was successful, and everything worked fine instantly, no lost playlists. I had disabled the Microsoft firewall, but turning it back on had no ill effect.

Summary: Hats off to you and Roon support in general. That alone is worth the price of admission.

If you or any users you know have an optimal approach to maximizing utility of a dedicated PC for core, which is awkward to interact with (monitor, keyboard, mouse all concealed with a wish for long battery life), such that it always wakes up clean, no passwords, and Roon running so my remote just jumps right in, then I’m listening.

Thank you for all the help.

Best,
Neal

Closed due to inactivity. If you are still seeing this issue, please open a new support thread.