I tried posting this in Support, but the new Get Help Wizard kept thinking the issue was resolved, because when I wait for it to time out and then manually select my Roon Server again, I reconnect. This is a fix according to the Get Help Wizard?
As shown in the network diagram below I have a completely wired setup (using a mix of CAT6, 7 and even 8), but yet playback can still stop intermittently, and I have the “Waiting for your Roon server” message appear. By intermittently I mean at least once or twice per hour.
My playback is a mix of local files and Tidal and the issue seems to happen on both. ROON is installed natively on the NUC, running Ubuntu 22.04. The NUC is used for many other docker containers, such as Plex etc. But the hardware specs of the NUC is really in the overkill category and the CPU and RAM usage never exceeds 20% and 40% respectively.
Wondering if anyone else with a wired setup ever comes across this?
As a P.S., there are other devices connected to the network switches but I don’t feel they’re relevant.
Some questions (for a fuller picture):
What model switches are they? what speed?
Anyway to see the “load” on the network at the time Roon quits?
Is there anything that happens on the network (or electrical supply, i.e. surge, brown out, AC or refrigerator kicking on etc.) around the time Roon stops?
Are you using a ton of DSP?
As a test, have you tried connecting the NUC directly to the router? or to the first switch?
Also as a test, have you tried disabling everything else on the NUC, and other devices on the network to see if the problem persists? Then, if it seems to go away, turn one item on at a time on the network, then in the NUC, to try to see if there is a particular device,software,item that might be having an issue with Roon?
I did as you said and started to manually isolate each device and connection. It turns out it’s the Cat 8 cable between my laptop and the mesh router. It’s a StarTech cable and is relatively new - so I’m not sure if it’s the cable or the ethernet port on my laptop. I still need to investigate that.
But anyways, I have switched for the time being to using a WiFi connection between my laptop and the mesh router and it’s been flawless since I adjusted the 5GHz-2 to channel 40 from a default of “Auto - channel 48” on the WRX560 mesh router. I hope this performance continues - my laptop is literally only 1 foot away from the mesh router.
Could be just a faulty cable or connector, but could also be the fact that Cat-8 cables are grounded and their purpose are professional installations in high-EMI environments like data centers, where ground potentials are actually measured.
Higher = better is not the case here. Try a normal Cat-6
I would also look at the so-called “Cat-7” cables. Since there is no such thing as a Cat-7 cable that would plug into any normal home equipment (real Cat-7 uses a different connector that would not fit into standard Ethernet jacks) any cable sold for home use as “Cat-7” is automatically suspicious just because it is not actually a compliant Cat-7 cable to begin with, so whether it works at all, sometimes, or well is a toss-up.
But also, as mentioned, there is no point in running Cat-8 cables at home, even more so over a 1 foot distance. Try using the cheapest cable you can find (5e should work just as well here) and see if that works.
Thanks for all the advice about ethernet cables. I’ll hold my hands up and admit that I mistakenly assumed the higher the better.
However, in this case I do believe the issue is with the ethernet port on my laptop. I have just tested a run of the mill Cat6 cable with it and it was back to the patchy performance.
That’s unfortunate, but have you tested it with some other device on the other end of the cable? It could be the port on the laptop, but could also be the port on the mesh device…
I happen to have a 25m Cat6 cable that is spare. I ran it over the weekend from my laptop, direct to my router, bypassing the mesh device, and bypassing the switches, and I still had the patchy performance - so yes, it must be my laptop.
To be honest that doesn’t surprise me either. It’s a 2.5 year old ASUS Rog Zephyrus G15, complete powerhouse, but it has had a number of issues. I’ve always primarily used a bluetooth keyboard, but the laptop’s keyboard stopped working a year ago. It was still under warranty when they keyboard stopped working. I returned it to ASUS, they told me there was liquid damage (conveniently not covered by warranty) and that the motherboard would need replacing for €2,033.07 This was very frustrating to hear because my laptop is mounted on a laptop stand in my WFH office, and I never spilled any liquid near it. I’m a very careful person with my technology devices (I’m sure some of you can relate!) Needless to say, I didn’t take ASUS up on this offer. I had my laptop returned as is, and have used the bluetooth keyboard since.
That’s quite unfortunate (making a note to avoid Asus laptops) but at least that does prove well enough where the issue is.
As @Rugby says, the cheapest/easiest way not involving changing anything else might be to get a USB network adapter and use that. These things are quite cheap and work well enough.
I have seen a few videos (GamersNexus, Louis Rossman, etc.) talking about the issues with Asus warranty claims like yours. Looks like they make stuff up to not have to fix things.
Yeah I read many such posts on Reddit and other forums about that when I was trying to go through the warranty process last year. Disappointing because it’s a great laptop otherwise. Oh well.
Happy to report though that since I switched to using WiFi, I haven’t had a single drop out on Roon
This was very frustrating to hear because my laptop is mounted on a laptop stand in my WFH office, and I never spilled any liquid near it. I’m a very careful person with my technology devices (I’m sure some of you can relate!) Needless to say, I didn’t take ASUS up on this offer. I had my laptop returned as is, and have used the bluetooth keyboard since.