@jamie still no response! This is not good customer service!
Hi @Ian_Pickering,
Weâre investigating the cause of your Android issue in your logs as we speak and we hope to know more soon.
Have you restarted your router, Core, and impacted remotes as recommended? I donât see confirmation of that.
Hello again @Ian_Pickering,
Your logs indicate that youâre having network issues, there are multiple WiFi dropouts when streaming to your android devices.
Please take a look at our Networking help article to see if any of these recommendations can be applied to your setup.
Thanks for getting back to me.
Yes, I have restarted all devices, multiple times, router, core server and android tablet, this has no effect.
I would not say these are WiFi dropouts, as that implies they happen intermittently. This happens the same every time, just stops after 3 to 5 secs into the track, with the same message, no matter what the source.
I repeat: I have absolutely no poblem streaming via Roon over WiFi to my Windows laptop. It always works 100% over the same WiFi connection. The problem only occurs when streaming to Android devices using Roon. I can also stream to Andoid devices over WiFi using the Qobuz app with no problems. I will send a little table to illustrate this.
I have read the Networking Best Practices and canât see anything there I can attribute this too. It happens exactly the same every time whether Iâm 5 feet or 50 feet away from the router. There is also no mention of IPv6 in the routerâs advanced settings only IPv4 so we can rule that out.
I can only connect my Android tablet via WiFi so I canât troubleshoot by directly connecting to my LAN. If you can suggest any other troubleshooting tips I would be happy to try those.
Just tried another test: streaming radio using a very low bit rate, in this case MP3 128kbps. Again it stops after a few seconds with different error message. See screenshot. Iâm able to stream to the same device using the BBC Sounds app with no problem.
Doesnât matter what format you play Roon sends uncompressed PCM to devices so that test is moot. Support have told you the issue is related to network performance.We have all said the same thing. Just because your laptop works doesnât mean it will successfully on other devices. Tablets and phones donât always have the best WiFi circuitry and Android does have its own fun on some devices. If they are on 2.4ghz bets are off if your in an overly busy wfii environment. You canât control external influences but you can try to mitigate them by analysing your local WiFi network to check how stable it is and how much interference is being caused by neighbouring WiFi systems. This really does sound like you have poor connectivity to these devices. This isnât always bandwidth related either itâs latency.
If you have the option try and disable ipv6 on your router this has been known to cause issues on Android and anything to do with multicast managemement on wifi. Get a WiFi analiser app and find the best channels available to use that are not the over lapping ones. 1,6 and 11 are usually the best donât ever leave it on auto. The more WiFi systems that use the same channel as yours the more issues you can get.
You could also try turning of the random Mac addressing that is used by default on the devices this has also been known to have some issues. Thatâs somewhere in the WiFi setup if I remember.
Thanks @CrystalGipsy , I appreciate your detailed advice. I will download a WiFi analyser and see what that comes up with. I have already looked at my router config and canât find any mention of ipv6.
However, if this is down to WiFi performance, how do you explain that other streaming apps work PERFECTLY ie Qobuz and BBC Sounds over the same WiFi connection?
Roon sends fully uncompressed media which are larger files and demand higher bandwidth and also demands less latency so it can guarantee sync play. Latency is the biggest killer here rather than bandwidth. BBC sounds app is lossy aac and much less demanding on a network and doesnât need the timing requirements Roon does. Qobuz app again uses Flac compression which results in smaller files to pull and is again not as demanding for timing. Also itâs a very different path to the device using those apps. Roon for good or for worse has a tendency to expose weakness in a WiFi network that under certain conditions cause issues. These are usually oversaturated WiFi resulting in high latency or a router configuration issue.
WiFi is riddled with issues especially in built up areas. 2.4ghs devices are susceptible to this. My area has so many other houses WiFi that cause lot of interference and I had to use the best ways to negate this, by having multiple access points each using their own channel and these are chosen so to have less interference from other wifi. Also not using provided WiFi on my ISP router.
I turned off random MAC addressing as you suggested but to no avail. Iâm not convinced of your FLAC compression argument, that might make a slight difference but this is all-or-nothing.
As for my WiFi environment, itâs pretty quiet. I live in a detached property with very few devices. Nothing is sharing my 2.4GHz WiFi channel (4) as you can see from this screenshot:
I also tried a bandwidth test by copying a 800MB video file to my tablet. At no point did it drop below 35Mbps:
Good debugging. Yes it does look like your not congested on 2.4ghz. but that uplink transfer is slow. How many devices do you have running on WiFi? Do you just have one WiFi access point?
Android devices are definitely not setup to turn off WiFi. Can you try turning off battery optimisation for the Roon app?. Android does have a habit of being ruthless here so another avenue to try.
I would try changing channel to 1 as itâs on an overlapping channel currentlyâŚ
Uplink speed is fine, this is copying the file in the opposite direction (tablet to NAS):
I have 5 or 6 WiFi devices, usually only 3 or 4 operating at the same time. Only one access point (router). Will check battery optimisation but I think I already turned that off.
What is overlapping? My router is the only device on ch 4.
Basically certain channels overlap with others and this can cause cross channel interference. Channels 1,6 and 11 are non overlapping and are the recommended ones to use. Unlikely this as 4 is free anyway from other users but itâs good practice to set these manually based on which one has less other wifi also using the same channel.
Do you have an option to seperate the 5ghz radio and 2.4ghz radios so they operate as two different wireless connections? This can help in some situations where devices donât like the dual band access point. But as this used to work you say likely not do anything. Did any firmware updates happen on the router at all? What make and model is it?
Is this for local files on the core and streaming from Qobuz ?
Thanks for these suggestions but if I may say so, this is really clutching at straws.
In fact I am now at my friends house and weâve just conducted a test over his WiFi by plugging my Roon Core server into his router and I get exactly the same result streaming to both android phone and tablet.
We also tried streaming from a file on the serverâs hard drive to the tablet using an app called CX File Explorer (effectively bypassing Roon) and that played perfectly.
So we can be pretty certain this is not a WiFi problem.
I think I will start a new thread which hopefully Roon support will pick up.
Just to put this completely beyond doubt, I got my neighbour to come round just now with his iPad, he connected to my WiFi, installed the Roon Remote app and streamed a track from my library which played perfectly, then I streamed the same track and it stopped playing after 5 secs.
So this is definitely a bug in the Android version of Roon Remote, probably build 970, which dropped just before this started happening (which incidentally I mentioned in my very first post a month ago, before we went down this WiFi rabbit hole!).
Over to you Roon Support - get your act together please!
I can play fine to Android no issues at all so not sure what the issue is. What version of Android are your devices running ? Have you cleared the Android app cache for Roon worth a go often sorts out issues with apps on Android misbehaving. Worth a go.