I have three apple machines: Mac Mini as the core, and MacPro and Macbook Air as remotes. Now, after I turn on Mac Mini followed by MacPro, if I try to start Roon from Macbook Air, two libraries show up and askes me to choose: the core library and another named as the MacPro machine name. Since I only have one license, if I try to choose the MacPro library, it askes me to unauthorize the core library. This is understandable but I’m not sure why the other remote’s library shows up as if it is another library option. Same thing happens when I turn on the core and Macbook Air, and try to start Roon on MacPro - again I see two libraries to choose from. Is this how it is supposed to be? Or is there something messed up?
For the sake of test, I removed the library Roon folder from MacPro and start Roon as if this is a new machine to be set up as a remote. I found the core library and connect. Everything looks good except the number of Genres and their layout looks different on core and remote. Specifically, I have four new genres that I created. Two of them disappeared on remote, and the other two are broken such that when I click the genre on the remote, the number of artists is zero, the number of albums does not match, and further if I click “View All 0 Artists” I get an error message “Try removing some focus criteria.”
I need to fully understand what is going on before I move the core machine. Please help.
Any chance you’ve been moving around your database? Or did you choose to manage your library on both machines during setup?
The only way a Roon install be “connectable” is if it’s previously been configured to manage your library. In your setup, I would’ve expected you to choose to manage a library exactly once, on the Mac Mini. The other two installs should function as Remotes and you shouldn’t be able to connect to them.
Genre display settings are per remote – on the General tab you’ll see Show/Hide settings for Roon Genres and Genres From File Tags.
We’ve heard from many users that they have some pretty complex ways of tagging genres in their files, but others in their household may just want the more standard genres (Jazz, Rock/Pop, etc). This allows for each remote to have it’s own display preference.
@mike, as far as I recall, I never tried to use remote machines to work as a server. I will do some more experiment. This could be related to the strange re-scan problem I’ve been having.
I accept that Genre display settings are per remote. But if I use a new remote machine and would like to have its Genre display copied from that of the server, how do I do that?
@mike, I’m pleased to let you know that I have successfully migrated the core machine. The erroneous library and slow/faulty re-scan issues all appear to be gone. There must have been some tangle-up in setting up my library which I have no clue about. Everything is working as expected. Thanks for your help!
After all was done, I realized that the audio device attached to the remote music server is private and cannot be accessed by iPad Roon remote. I now revert back to making the music server machine to be the core. But I purged the Roon folder for the other two remote machines and the duplicate server library disappeared. Things are improving.