HDMI audio not working on headless Raspberry Pi 5 with Roon (ref#9HNHUE)

Support
1

What best describes your playback issue?

· Music doesn't start when I press "Play"

What type of Zone is affected by this problem?

· *Network Zones* are affected.

Is the affected network Zone connected with Ethernet or WiFi?

· WiFi

Does the issue affect all file formats?

· The issue affects *multiple/all* file formats.

Does the issue happen with local library music, streaming service music, or both?

· *Only local library *music is affected.

Where is your local content stored?

· On the same machine where RoonServer is running, USB drive

If you move the content from your NAS to a local storage location, do you still experience issues with playback?

· The issue happens for both the NAS storage location and on the secondary storage location

Please try playing content of a lower sample rate (44.1kHz or 48kHz), does this work as expected?

· No, lower sample rates are still affected

Do you have an approximate timestamp of when the issue last occurred?

· 8:30 am eastern time today

What are the make and model of the affected audio device(s) and the connection type?

· Sony 43X85K TV, Sonos Beam Gen 2, connected via HDMI

Describe the issue

Is HDMI audio supported on a headless raspberry pi 5? I cannot get audio to work even though system audio, and other audio applications (Plexamp) do work. Roon does the device as an endpoint.

Describe your network setup

Hitron CODA DOCSIS 3.1 Modem, Glinet Flint 2 router

2

Hello @Brian_H and welcome to the forum.

I think this depends on the OS you’re running on the RPi. Ropieee, a popular OS around here for RPi, does for example not support HDMI IIRC.

3

Hi @BlackJack and thank you for the reply. I am running Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit) Bookworm and running Roon headless on it because I saw that Ropieee does not support HDMI audio. For this endpoint, HDMI is my only option unfortunately.

4

Hi @bjh,

Thanks for writing in and for sharing your report - welcome to the Roon Community as well, we’re happy to have you here!

I believe Bookworm now uses PipeWire by default, while Roon is still expects to talk to ALSA directly. Can you confirm the system is outputting via ALSA in your case? Sometimes disabling PulseAudio or PipeWire, then reboot your machine and see if you’re able to get output properly?

Run this to check what’s available:

aplay -l

You should see your HDMI device listed. We’ll be on standby for your reply, thank you Brian! :raised_hands:

5

Hi @Benjamin thank you for the help! here’s what the command displays:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: vc4hdmi0 [vc4-hdmi-0], device 0: MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0 [MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: vc4hdmi1 [vc4-hdmi-1], device 0: MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0 [MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

How would I confirm that the system is outputting via ALSA? I’m guessing that is where my issue is.

Thank you again!

6

I now remember that this seems to be an ongoing issue that, to my knowledge, no one has resolved so far. Sea a previous report that links to others:

7

Thanks for the reply @BlackJack. Linux is fairly new for me so I thought maybe I was missing or overlooking something. Appreciate the help!

8

Hello @bjh,

Thank you for reaching out to Roon Support.

Although the HDMI output on your Ropieee device is operated by ALSA, it does not return a list of supported audio formats to the RAAT service. As a result, it cannot be used as an output device in Roon.

Since this setup is not officially supported by Roon, we recommend posting your question in the RoPieee section of our Community, where other users and the Ropieee developer may be able to offer more targeted assistance.

9

Hi @vadim - I am not using RoPieee - I am running the current version Roon Bridge on Raspberry Pi OS

10

Hello @bjh .

Sorry for the confusion, here is the correct section Raspberry Pi. Feel free to post your questions there.

11

Thank you for your help @vadim