Imac - Cannot restore Roon

[thomas_barnes]

Need savvy Roon users’ guidance here!

I had to erase the hard disk of my Imac (Os 11.7.10) and restore it from Time Machine. Afterwards I downloaded Roon to try to restore on this Imac. Roon installed its software on Imac but will not open.

since I am using the Imac as my Roon core I selected that option when reopening Roon, but I get a ‘fatal error’ message “could not create required lock file”.

No idea how to proceed from here.

1. How restore Roon to the Imac that’s been erased and restored from TMachine?
2. Since the Imac hard drive was erased does this mean I have no access to previous back ups?

thanks!

[Jim_F]

That depends on where you were backing up to. I always backup to an attached USB drive, never the same drive as Roon is installed on.

Maybe it’s on your Time Machine backup.

Maybe this will work for the lock file…
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/fatal-error-could-not-create-required-lock-file/196139

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@thomas_barnes

“could not create required lock file”.

It’s a lock file left behind somehow by Roon when it last ran. When starting up, Roon checks if the lock file exists. If it finds one, it assumes that another instance of Roon is already running, so it doesn’t start.

You have to clean this lock file. There are many forum posts recommending to change permissions on the directory where the file is saved, but that’s probably not the best idea. This approach is probably safer:

Fatal Error Could not create required lock file (MacOS 13.4.1) [Investigating]

Hi @James_England, Thank you for the report. We are tracking what appears to be a rare but ongoing instance of this fatal error. Are you also able to elaborate on the following? Open Activity Monitor and see if there are Roon-related processes still following. If so, what happens if you terminate them? Does Roon launch properly on the next attempt? Navigate to your Mac’s .tmp folder (Go → /tmp) and clear any .lck file associated with Roon. We’ll let you know as we learn more. Thanks!

[thomas_barnes]

Thank you , this did unlock it:
[Fatal Error - could not create required lock file ]

From what I read on Roon forums seems cannot restore roon settings from TM. Unfortunately I backed up to the Imac that crashed.

I will get a new Imac next week and set the back ups to an external drive.

[Jim_F]

I don’t know how Time Machine works. I thought maybe you could find the Roon backup and copy it to a place where it will work to do a restore. IDK.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@thomas_barnes

Thank you , this did unlock it:
[Fatal Error - could not create required lock file ]

This is one of the examples that I meant - they work but they change the default ownership on the /private/tmp system folder. After this command, it is owned by your user account (because the variable $(whoami) resolves to the name of your user account), not root. Showing this in the Terminal:

List the ownership and permissions of /tmp:

mario@chronic / % ls -ld /tmp
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root wheel 11 Dec 15 15:43 /tmp → private/tmp

(owned by user root and group wheel. Only root can write. /tmp is a link to /private/tmp)

List the ownership and permissions of /private/tmp:

mario@chronic / % ls -ld /private/tmp
drwxrwxrwt 7 root wheel 224 Mar 6 16:08 /private/tmp

(owned by user root and group wheel. Everyone can read and write)

Change the owner with the found command:

mario@chronic / % sudo chown $(whoami) /tmp

List again:

mario@chronic / % ls -ld /tmp
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root wheel 11 Dec 15 15:43 /tmp → private/tmp
mario@chronic / % ls -ld /private/tmp
drwxrwxrwt 7 mario wheel 224 Mar 6 16:08 /private/tmp

The owner is now mario (my user account) and not root. It is not a security disaster because everyone on the machine can read and write into /tmp/private anyway, based on the original directory permissions, but it is not pretty and who knows which software stumbles over it in the future.

To reset this:

mario@chronic / % sudo chown root /tmp

(this sets the owner back to root in the same way as previously it set it to mario)

List again to verify:

mario@chronic / % ls -ld /private/tmp
drwxrwxrwt 7 root wheel 224 Mar 6 16:08 /private/tmp
mario@chronic / % ls -ld /tmp
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root wheel 11 Dec 15 15:43 /tmp → private/tmp
mario@chronic / %

Instead of the sudo chown $(whoami) /tmp you should be able to delete any possibly existing lock file by navigating to /tmp in the Apple Finder or Terminal and deleting any file ending in “.lck” and in some way having Roon in its name.
Do this ONLY after completely shutting down Roon and RoonServer. Otherwise it may lead to corruption as two Roon instances might possibly get started at the same time (and who knows what this does to the database)