I think my Nucleus is dead

I have been posting over the last few months about my issues with Roon. I have had lots of issues with it not being able to communicate with Tidal. Fellow users have suggested that it is my network that is to blame but my network is pretty solid. Hardwired cat 5 and 6 cables, Ubiquiti switches, etc. In addition, I checked in with Ubiquiti tech support and reviewed the issue with them. Everything looks good on my network.

Last week, intermittent problems with Roon became constant. The Roon Core couldn’t be recognized because it was “initializing”. It never recovered from this. See screenshot from my iPhone.

I own Roon because I like music. In an attempt to listen to music again (other than connecting directly with Tidal which works but doesn’t have the functionality of Roon), I made a Mac Mini computer on my network the Roon Core. Guess what? It works great!

So, I think my problems all along have been with a Nucleus that was slowly dying and now has succumbed. Before I ask for a replacement, however, are there diagnostics that Roonlabs or I can run on the machine?

Thanks, Tim

Plug in a (keyboard and) screen, to check the boot status. If an IP address is displayed, can you ping it, or open the web admin page (IP address in a browser)? If you see a page of numbers and text, you may have been affected by the issue here:

Hi @Timothy_Good,

The first step, so we can understand what’s happening, is to connect your Nucleus to a TV or monitor via HDMI. Can you send us a picture of the output?

First, go to store and purchase keyboard.

Dylan,

I am disappointed that I have to be a computer technician to use a music service. How can I recommend Roon to my non-nerd friends? Will Roon always be a DIY product?

My Nucleus is mounted on a rack in a hi-fi/network closet. With some effort, I removed the Nucleus from its spot in the closet and connected it to a monitor and a keyboard. I then booted the device and took the attached picture.

I await your reply.

Just kibitzing here, but I’m pretty sure dylan’s reply will be to ask if you can get into the Web UI by using 192.168.1.241 in a browser?

If you can, how about a screen shot of the resulting UI screen?

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Hi @Timothy_Good,

Sorry for the trouble! Typically Roon with Nucleus is very simple, but in the cases where something does go wrong the HDMI output can display some helpful diagnostics information.

Everything is looking okay so far — The HDMI output doesn’t show any of the errors that mikeb mentioned above.

As Slim suggested, can you reach the Nucleus Web Administration Interface?

Attached is a screenshot of the Web Admin interface.

Also attached is a screen shot of Roon trying to find a core. As you can see, it can’t find one.

Thanks for the screenshot, @Timothy_Good.

The first thing I notice is that the RoonServer software version is not up to date, nor the Roon OS version — Can you select Reinstall under Operating System and then reboot using the icon in the upper-right?

Is there any change after that?

Please see attached screenshot. The machine has been initializing for quite a while, perhaps half an hour. Before reinstalling the software, the machine spent a couple of weeks initializing. It wasn’t playing any music for me during that time.

Is there some reason why you have set the IP address of your Nucleus to be a static address? And are you sure that the address (192.168.1.241) is not in the pool of addresses that your DHCP server is using?

We set static IP addresses because this would allow us to retain the ip address for management purposes whenever we had to restart the Nucleus or any sort of network equipment. Given the complexity of the system, we decided to allocate static ips to the servers, including various TVs and other peripherals to ensure that the ip address does not change in the event of a reboot.

Currently the DHCP Server is set at 192.168.1.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. The range of IP addresses are from 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.254.

The other peripherals in the household that are not dependent on being called upon repeatedly by other devices on the network are set to receive a dynamically allocated ip address. When we plug in the network cable to the Roon Nucleus, it registers properly on the network and displays the correct IP address. Afterwards, visiting the 192.168.1.241 it appears to show up properly.

So how do you guarantee that the DHCP server wouldn’t assign the 192.168.1.241 to another device on your network?

If you use static IP on several devices, you should configure the DHCP service out of the statically assigned range. Or, and I think even better, you could set up DHCP reservation for the devices you wish to have a stable IP across reboots. All routers will permit that using the MAC address of the device for which IP reservation is configured.

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If your using ubiquity hardware set the fixed ip using the Unifi controller via the devices section. There is no need to set it in the Nucleus UI. The router could effectively have allocated that IP already. If you have this setup already I would suggest you set the Nucleus to DHCP, and also set the device in the controller to DHCP to assign a new ip then set it to fixed via the controller and leave the Nucleus on DHCP. I have had Ubiquity get very upset when using fixed ips on devices especially if that IP has not been assigned to a specific Mac address.

Thanks for the screenshot, @Timothy_Good.

I have enabled diagnostics on your account so our technical staff can get some more insight into what’s going on here. The next time your Core is active a diagnostics report will automatically be generated and uploaded directly to our servers

Once that’s been received, I’ll be sure to update this thread and pass the diagnostics over to the team for further analysis.

Dylan,

Since my Nucleus seems to be dead, how will the Core ever be active? I sent you the screen shot showing that the Core was initializing yesterday. It is still initializing. It has been initializing for the last few weeks.

If there is something I should be doing to assist you, please let me know.

Tim

Your nucleus is not “dead”, as the screen shot proves. Your network is probably at fault. Nothing takes “weeks” to initialise, there is a connection issue. Fix that, and the world will look different. A good start would be to use DHCP throughout.

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As a quick and dirty test, switch the server to a dhcp allocated address and reboot. Then see if the core initialisation ‘error’ disappears. If successful ask the router to bind the MAC address of the Nucleus to an IP address. At least this way you avoid any possible conflicts with DHCP allocated devices that a static IP may give when allocated within the DHCP range. The address will always remain the same. Saying this on my ASUS router it’s very simple to bind a MAC address to an IP address.

I no longer use static IP addresses , I let the router sort it out with or without an address reservation depending on the device

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Dylan,

Any update? I miss having music in my life.

Tim

Use DHCP and see if that resolves your problem.