ELAC Discovery Z3 drops off Roon randomly

I have two ELAC Discovery Z3 devices in addition to my main stereo. The ELACs are in the bedroom and kitchen while the main stereo is being streamed to by a Mac Mini that is running the ROON core. When it all works, it is a pure delight.

Sometimes, the ELAC in the kitchen will be streaming merrily along and it will just drop off and stop playing. It will no longer appear in ROON. If I mess around with unplugging and plugging back the device, and running the Z3 tool to log back into the network, I can get it to come back on ROON. I am not streaming to multiple devices, just the kitchen one when this happens.

Any idea what is going on? Is it a network problem? I have a good wireless network repeater, the Orbi, which gives me fast internet all over my apartment. I don’t lose wireless in the kitchen when the ELAC drops, at least, I have not noticed that happening.

Thanks for the help.

Hello @Lawrence_Kellogg,

Thanks for contacting support, I’d be happy to assist here. We will try to reproduce the behavior you’re experiencing in-house but I have a few questions as to have a clearer idea of what’s going on here:

  • How long into a listening session does it take for the device to start experiencing these issues?

  • Does this issue occur for all file formats and sample rates or is it limited to one specific type of media? Do you notice any patterns or commonalities in the media when this issue occurs (ex. MQA only, higher sample rates, FLAC but not AAC/MP3, ect.)?

  • Have you updated your ELAC to the newest firmware?

  • Do you have “Disable IGMP Proxying” enabled in your router settings? We have seen that toggling this option helps resolve some communication issues on Orbi networks.

Please let me know your reply to the above questions when possible.

Thanks,
Noris

Wifi is very susceptible to environmental interference; especially microwaves. That might be a reason it is flaky in the kitchen.

Noris,

Thanks for the quick reply!

  1. Listening sessions can go on for ten minutes or more before the device drops out.

  2. I haven’t noticed this problem on any particular format, I believe I was streaming an AAC file.

  3. I have tried at various times to upgrade the ELACs but have had all sorts of problems getting the devices to be found by Roon on the network and have been forced to do a system reset to get them recognized. I can try again.

  4. I am using the Orbi in Access Point (AP) mode and I am not sure that the Disable IGMP option is available for toggling, at least, I have not found it yet. Is the option available in AP mode?

  5. I’m old fashioned, I don’t own a microwave, :wink:

Hello @Lawrence_Kellogg,

Thank you for letting me know your response to my questions. I have found this guide which provides some instructions on how to enable this feature, although I am not certain that it is available when using Access Point mode, it is worth to check.

If you are using another router as your primary router in this setup, can you please let me know the model/manufacturer?

As a test to see if the WiFi could be causing issues here, would you be able to temporarily connect your Kitchen ELAC via Ethernet directly to the router to see if the same issue occurs?

Please let me know when possible.

Thanks,
Noris

The Orbi is plugged into a FiOS-G1100 gateway, owner’s manual here:

I just streamed a whole CD over the kitchen, bedroom, and stereo systems grouped together and it worked without a glitch.

I’ll see what happens in the kitchen tomorrow when I make breakfast and will try it plugged directly into the router if it fails again.