Good question. One of my endpoints uses core audio and the other doesn’t. The MBP overheats with either, so apparently not a factor.
Was worth asking because a bunch of people using these machines for music production (heavy core audio use) have been reporting issues from glitching/dropouts to unexpectedly heavy cpu use in their DAW as well so wondered if they were related - it seems not.
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Hello. I have a problem operating mac mini 2018 (3.0 GHz, 16 gb, 500 SSD, 10.14.6). There is a fan spin, CPU load (300-400%), mac mini more temperature.
I used a mac mini as the Roon kernel, but after problems, I made the Roon kernel from MBP 17 ”20011 (10.12.6). I use the Mac mini only as a remote control, but I still have problems with the temperature and the fan.
I don’t know what to do, I’ve heard that Roon mac mini 2018 problems are very common.
Have you figured out where the problem is? My firewall is off.
I have a Mac mini 2018 with 3.2 GHz running macOS 10.14.6 and an ASUS RT-AC87U router, my Mac’s as well as my router’s firewalls are enabled. Roon’s CPU usage spikes to over 300% and stays there, even when opening roon right after restarting the Mac. Prolonged hot temperatures in the Mac mini surely shorten its lifespan, which is why I’ve been unable to listen using roon much in the last few months.
I hope you are able to reproduce and address this problem before everything else. It shouldn’t be that hard to solve.
Hello All,
I wanted to provide an update to this issue. This issue is a priority for us and we have observed this behavior happen in a QA environment intermittently, but it has not been consistently reproducible at all times.
The most useful information to have moving forward is to identify any pattern as to what triggers it, if there is any specific set of steps that can help us make this issue happen 100% of the time, please do let me know so I can inform the technical team.
Even minor details such as “I opened Chrome/Safari or I connected a USB drive and only afterwards Roon started exhibiting this behavior” would be useful information to have. Thanks!
Hello noris,
thank you for your concern. I’m only a beginning programmer, but would it not be possible to observe, using a stack trace or similar, which parts or threads of roon are running at 100% CPU utilization when roon exhibits this behavior, and to find the offending code using DTrace?
Alternatively, I could send you some sort of a system report for my system. Roon runs too hot about 95% of the time on my system, I would estimate.
Thanks!
Hi @afritzse,
Thank you for the offer, but this won’t necessarily help. Roon can be performing multiple functions at one time and you would need to understand the underlying code and what each function is doing, so it’s not as simple as just running a trace.
As I have mentioned previously, we have been able to get into this state intermittently and our devs have collected CPU samples and log traces from their own machines when this issue occurred.
The issue is still in the process of debugging, but if there are any set of steps or other conditions that trigger this behavior reliably (as we have only seen it occur intermittently), please do let me know.
Thanks!
Hi @noris,
yes, I hear that these kinds of bugs are the hardest to fix, where you don’t know where to start. The only information I can give right now is that CPU usage goes up right after starting roon; this time it showed 455%.
I will, you’re welcome!
This afternoon I received a 1.2 gb Mojave 10.14.6 update. I made a restart and everything suddenly runs ok, see picture. So I wonder, maybe it will be okay.
At first, the OS update seems to have fixed it, but it didn’t solve the problem for me. After I left the app running, the high CPU condition came back. In my case, it seems like the reboot made it temporarily go away, but it always comes back. I’m upgraded to the latest version of Mojave and I’m still running into this issue on my 6-core i7 Mac Mini (2018)
anyone running audio over the USB … I think there are T2 chip issues that are related to USB audio in the newer MACs but perhaps this is manifesting more with the MAcMini’s?
Any change with macOS Catalina 10.15?
Same result for me, Roon CPU load is high during the database activity after launch and then drops when that completes. But after several hours of continuous Roon use, the problem always returns (sudden surge in CPU load, then sustained) until I reboot, which restarts the same cycle all over again.
Noris, are your QA engineers testing the use case of running Roon continuously for several hours? Network activity is not a variable for me, the problem recurs with or without network activity as reported previously.
cheers, Tom
Yes I’ve tried it with and without USB on my MBPro. USB has no effect on the problem (sustained high Roon CPU load after hours of continuous use), likewise network activity has no effect.
I wonder what devices are involved in this problem. If the problem is T2 chip, so it is in mac mini, Air and MBPro 2018/2019. Does anyone have problems with the new iMac? If high temperatures persist, I would have to sell the mac mini and buy the iMac 2019.
Currently not having this problem with my newish iMac i9 on Mojave. Had it a while ago on my older iMac pre-Mojave but it went away with a combination of a newer Roon build and/or Mojave.
I only use it as a Controller; my Roon core is on a NUC with Rock. I do use USB-out to a Schiit Modi DAC.
I don’t think it’s hardware related, but just some unlucky application state that creates some kind of race condition.
That sounds positive! I have been waiting to buy a new MacMini to put Roon on. Because of this issue. If anyone can confirm Mojave plus the new Roon build works without this “runaway” I can finally get my new i5 or better MacMini. Then I can finally use the DSP to its full power (my current 2012 i5 iMac can’t)…
Well, it seems to be a lottery. But yeah, my iMac i9 on Mojave is behaving OK.
For me it worked by installing and launching Roon Bridge first and then launching Roon remote on my iMac Pro on Catalina 10.15.1. The CPU usage went from 150-200% to 2-5%.