High CPU use and dropping zones

[mike_cole]

Roon Core Machine

Debian Buster AMD64
Dell Rack Server R220 - Intel Xeon Processor - 4 cores - E3-1220 v3 @ 3.10GHz
8Gb Ram
4Tb HDD

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Hardwired to Gigabit Switch
Firewall/Router is Sophos XG

Connected Audio Devices

4 x Sonos Speakers
MiniDSP SHD
Allo DigiOne (RPi4) DietPi
Hifiberry Beocreate (RPi4) HifiBerryOS
Hifiberry Amp (RPi4) HifiBerryOS
Hifiberry Dac+(RPi4) HifiBerryOS
Various Macs and iPhones

Library Size

7,000 tracks

Description of Issue

For some reason, after behaving for a year, my Roon is having lots of drop outs, and consuming a lot of processor power and memory. I have not added any new sons to my library for a while.

I can be listening to either streaming radio, or an album via Tidal, and it will stop mid song. Zones seem to vanish.

Restarting the service on the server will bring back all the output zones for a while. Sometimes a zone will show up 20+ times.

[mike_cole]

Things have settled down - will see how it goes. The error did happen a few times over the last week.

[wizardofoz (Mr Fix It aka The Wiz)]

I see another Linkwitz user. What models did you build? I have Pluto, Orion, LXMini and LX521.4’s

[mike_cole]

I did buy some B&W speakers with a Cambridge Amp and the BlueSound Node early in the lock down last year and just wasn’t happy. The sound was lacking something.

So I built a set of LXMinis in the middle of last year, powered by a 4 channel Modulus 86 Amp that I built too. I use a MiniDSP SHD for the audio shaping, and feed it with an Allo DigiOne.

The combination sounds amazing - I’m very happy with it all. Seriously thinking of building the LX521 next, but am a little intimidated by all the DSP needs. What do you think of them? Do you ever try them with movies? Don’t really want a set of speakers for video, and another for music if I can help it.

[wizardofoz (Mr Fix It aka The Wiz)]

Some have used for movies but I don’t. My HT setup is totally separate to my Orions and the 521’s are in a 2 channel only setup. All use ASP not DSP

As it’s a weekend you might have to wait for support to catch with the queue but they should chime once the weekend behind your ticked it dealt with.

[beka]

Hey @mike_cole,

I am so sorry this thread has been dormant for this long…

Could you please share an update with us on this? We’d love to help if we still can

[mike_cole]

Hi Rebeka,

I decided to get a new computer, and do a fresh install, but I’m still seeing problems.

Server is Ubuntu 21.10 (GNU/Linux 5.13.0-20-generic x86_64), and running Roon 1.8 Beta 842, on an Intel Xeon with 16GB.

Still dropping connectivity every couple of hours, which is very frustrating.

top - 19:21:53 up 2 days,  2:13,  1 user,  load average: 2.02, 0.91, 0.45
Tasks: 252 total,   1 running, 250 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
%Cpu(s):  2.0 us,  2.8 sy,  0.0 ni, 94.8 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.4 si,  0.0 st
MiB Mem :  15785.6 total,  11227.1 free,   1872.6 used,   2685.8 buff/cache
MiB Swap:   2048.0 total,   2048.0 free,      0.0 used.  13558.6 avail Mem

    PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 556998 root      20   0   22.9g   1.2g 362364 S  10.3   7.7   0:49.89 RoonAppliance

You can see it loses it here at 7:20pm

[beka]

Hey @mike_cole,

Thanks so much for keeping us updated. What a bummer that the new computer seems to behave just the same as the old one…

If this is still an issue, could you please zip up a set of logs and upload them here? We’d love to take a closer look

So I don’t forget, could you please let us know once you’ve had a chance to do so?

[wizardofoz (Mr Fix It aka The Wiz)]

I wonder if there is any improvement after the new Linux Roon update today.

[mike_cole]

Hi Rebeka, Just uploaded a tar.bz2 of all the logs from /var/Roon/RoonServer/Logs.

The server disconnected about 7:35pm tonight.

Mike

[beka]

That’s super!

Thanks, @mike_cole. We have them and they have been sent to our technical team. I’ll follow up as soon as I hear back from them

[noris]

Hi @mike_cole ,

Thanks for submitting those logs over and for your patience here while we’ve had a chance to review them.

Looking over the log, it appears that there is quite a bit of disconnect/reconnects happening on the network level, particularly to IP 192.168.1.145.

At some points, you are even getting disconnected from your Macbook, DietPi, Ubuntu, and our Metadata servers all around the same time, further suggesting that this issue could be network-related.

@mike_cole

Hardwired to Gigabit Switch

What kind of gigabit switch is this, managed or un-managed? Have you tried to bypass this switch and have a direct connection to the router? If so is the issue the same?

[mike_cole]

Well thank you for taking the time to look into this. I greatly appreciate it.

I will try changing some things around.

Switch is unmanaged - TL-SG1024 | 24-Port Gigabit Rackmount Switch | TP-Link

One thing I’ve noticed is every time I lose the Roon connection, when I reconnect it shows that Roon is scanning my file server music directory. Do you think that is related?

I’m tempted to replace the Roon server HDD with a SDD, reinstall Debian, and move all my music onto that, and then use RSYNC to sync it with my fileserver. I like keeping it on the fileserver so that it get’s backed up. I have been trying to keep as few services as possible running on the Roon server, but a CRON job to sync at midnight should not cause problems.

[noris]

Hi @mike_cole ,

@mike_cole

when I reconnect it shows that Roon is scanning my file server music directory. Do you think that is related?

If the tracks are on a network share, then yes, it could be a symptom of the same issue.

@mike_cole

I’m tempted to replace the Roon server HDD with a SDD, reinstall Debian, and move all my music onto that, and then use RSYNC to sync it with my fileserver.

Do let us know if you try this and it helps!

[wizardofoz (Mr Fix It aka The Wiz)]

I too have noticed this especially on older processor systems like MacPro Xeon’s - scanning a remote library made the system quite useable but once it was over things were back to normal. All these were on new installs and with analysis turned off. Mine were 2010 Mac Pro Dual cpu 2 x 2.4GHz 2 x 4 Cores (E5620) and Single CPU 1 x 2.8Ghz 1 x 4 Cores (W3530) both with 8GB RAM and SSD booted. Lan was 1GBE.

[mike_cole]

Well that was a spectacular failure. New SSD, new Debian install.

Now have no Qobuz, no streaming radio apart from one or two stations. Most will not show even the station artwork or ID.

Can only really listen to local music.

edit: Used a backup and restored and things seem to be working again. Will let you know if it fixes the main issue.

[mike_cole]

Everything seems to be behaving I’m happy to say.

Thank you for your help.