I built a dedicated computer to run HQ Player. Roon server is running on a different machine.
Before I made this change HQ Player was running fine while on the same machine as Roon server.
I added the new HQ Player zone by entering its IP address (which is static). However, after I select this zone and select music to play nothing happens.
Doesn’t Roon need to know the username and password of the HQ Player PC so it can log in at send files to HQ Player? Currently that information hasn’t been entered and I don’t see where you do this.
For those who are using a dedicated PC for HQ Player did you have to do anything other than create and select the new zone?
Roon clearly sees HQ Player because if I change the volume setting in HQ Player it updates in Roon but the song timing never moves and nothing populates in HQ Player.
What is the NAA endpoint that HQP is playing to? From your description I’d expect the issue is here. Is this setup the same as when both Roon and HQP were on the same PC? If so perhaps it’s a firewall or antivirus issue?
I can player directly from HQ Player to my ultraRendu. When both applications were on the same machine everything worked well. I am running WS 2016 on both machines. I agree that the firewall may be the issue. I will have to check the firewall settings to see if anything is flagged.
Not necessarily, I’d disable firewall on HQP machine first. If this has no positive effect, disable firewall on Roon machine also. If this allows music through enable HQP machine firewall first and if it still works you know where your problem lies.
I am not sure what kind of additional firewall you may be using, but I would definitely add exceptions for Roon.exe and RAATServer.exe to your Windows Defender firewall by using these instructions and also to any other application firewalls you may have. Roon.exe and RAATServer.exe can be found by navigating to the Database Location/Application path.
Since you mentioned that you are using Windows Server 2016, you should be aware that by default it has a “teredo tunneling pseudo interface” that can cause issues with Roon Remote connections and we suggest disabling this (as mentioned in our Networking Best Practices).
HQPlayer has multiple options of displaying the play time, “time”, “remain” and “total remain”. You will want to select the first option of “time” in HQPlayer for the playback bar to properly progress in Roon. This is mentioned in our HQ Player Setup Instructions.
Overall the communication between Roon and HQPlayer is bidirectional. So Roon must be able to make TCP connections to HQPlayer and likewise HQPlayer must be able to make TCP connections to Roon. If these fail, playback fill fail.
Here I’m assuming correctly set HQPlayer IP addres / host name in Roon.
HQPlayer log file can be useful for locating the problem. It will have records about Roon connecting to HQPlayer and HQPlayer talking back to Roon about the streams.
I would make sure that HQPlayer has been added as an exception on the outbound machine and then Roon.exe/RAATServer.exe as an exception in the inbound machine (where Roon is installed). Once you have both of those exceptions, is there any change to the original issue?
Update. I removed Audiophile Optimizer from both machines and applied the pending Windows Server 2016 updates. Once they were completed I open HQ Player on the 2nd PC and pointed to it via the Roon app. The music is now flowing through.
A couple of notes. First, the firewall is disabled on both machines. Thus, nothing should be blocked from the private network. This isn’t a good long term solution but I needed to get things running first. Second, audiophile optimizer is now running on the HQ Player PC.
I will add exceptions to each of the PCs and then run the firewall (I am not sure what audiophile optimizer does to the firewall) and see if things still work.
If you have a firewalled home network and only service you are running on HQPlayer and Roon machines are HQPlayer and Roon that are except from the firewall, I don’t see what use running a firewall would be if there’s no service it would be blocking…
Jussi, that makes sense but I do have to go outside my network at times to get Microsoft updates. That is the only time that occurs though since I use my other computer to grab other software, like HQP updates.
I would just like to understand how to have the firewall active and add exceptions.
Sorry, but I don’t understand how is that related to firewall? If your home network is protected by a hardware firewall, you can just pull the updates etc from within it.
