Inability to connect Roon with NAS (ref#A7QK89)

Support
1

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· None of the above quite fits

None of the above quite fits

· None of these quite match

Tell us what's going on

· I am no longer able to connect Roon with my NAS.

Tell us about your home network

· I have two routers: Fios G1100 and TP Link AC1300

2

Hello @Christopher_Finan,

Welcome back to the community! It’s been a while, but we’re here to help you get your NAS and Roon talking to each other again.

To help us narrow down the cause—especially since your network involves two routers (Fios G1100 and TP-Link AC1300) which can sometimes create “communication barriers”—could you please clarify a few details:

  1. Server Location: Is your Roon Server software actually installed on the NAS (like a Synology or QNAP), or is the NAS just holding your music files while Roon runs on a separate PC or Mac?
  2. The “Symptom”: What exactly happens when you try to connect? Do you see an error message like “Network path not found,” or does the NAS simply not appear in your storage settings?
  3. Recent Changes: Did this stop working after a specific event, such as a Roon software update, a firmware update on one of your routers, or perhaps after moving one of the devices to a different plug?

If your NAS is plugged into the TP-Link and your Roon Server is plugged into the Fios (or vice versa), they may be on two different “subnets.” Roon generally needs both the Server and the storage to be on the same “branch” of the network to see each other clearly.

3

1. The server is on Synology (DS220j).

2. When I try to connect, I get “invalid network path”

3. I did switch routers for a while when I was trying a new internet provider, but I was having problems before that.

The NAS is plugged into the Fios router, but I could only get Roon to work when it was connected to the TP-Link.

4

Following up on my reply. Need any more information?

5

Both the NAS and the TP-Link are plugged into the FIOS.

6

HI @Christopher_Finan,

We’re having a difficult time requesting a diagnostic report from your server, could you please use the directions found here and send over a set of Roon Server logs to our File Uploader? Once logs have been uploaded, please let us know so that we can check the server for your files, thanks!

7

I have uploaded the logs in a zip file using your upload server. Thanks!

8

Hello @Christopher_Finan

Thank you for the update.

That sentence is the “smoking gun” we were looking for:

This confirms that you have two separate networks (subnets) running in your home. Your Fios router is creating one “bubble,” and your TP-Link is creating a second “bubble” inside the first one. Because of this, Roon is trying to find a path to your NAS but is hitting a wall between those two bubbles.

The Fix: Switch to Access Point (AP) Mode

To get Roon and your NAS talking again, you need to stop the TP-Link from acting as a “Router” and turn it into an Access Point. This collapses your network into one single, unified group where every device can see each other.

How to do it:

  1. Connect a computer to your TP-Link network.
  2. Open a web browser and log into the TP-Link settings (usually by going to tplinkwifi.net or 192.168.0.1).
  3. Go to the Advanced tab at the top.
  4. On the left-hand menu, look for Operation Mode.
  5. Select Access Point Mode and click Save.
  6. The TP-Link will reboot.

What happens next?

Once the TP-Link is in AP Mode, it stops trying to manage “addresses” and simply passes the data through to the Fios router.

  • Your NAS and your Roon Server will now both get their IP addresses from the Fios router.
  • They will finally be on the same “subnet” (likely both starting with 192.168.1.x).
  • The “Invalid network path” error should vanish because the “wall” between the two routers is gone.

One final tip: After the TP-Link reboots, it’s a good idea to restart your Synology NAS and your Roon Server one more time just to make sure they grab their new, matching addresses.

Does your TP-Link connect to the Fios router via a long Ethernet cable, or are they connected wirelessly?

9

The TP-Link and the Fios router are connected by an Ethernet cable.

10

Hello @Christopher_Finan,

Thank you for the reply. While having them both connected via Ethernet cable is a great start for stability, it doesn’t automatically mean they are “talking” to each other if they are plugged into two different routers.

When you have two routers (Fios and TP-Link) in one house, they usually create two separate internal networks. If your Synology NAS is plugged into the Fios and your Roon Remote/Server is on the TP-Link, they are likely on different subnets. Roon is like a person shouting across a wall—it cannot “see” the NAS because the second router is acting as a barrier.

To confirm this, could you please do a quick check:

  1. Check the NAS IP: Go into your Synology DSM settings and find its IP address (it usually looks like 192.168.1.xxx or 192.168.0.xxx).
  2. Check your Roon Remote IP: On the device you use to control Roon (phone or PC), go to the network settings and find its IP address.

Please share both IP addresses with us. If the third set of numbers is different (e.g., one is 1.xxx and the other is 0.xxx), that is exactly why you are getting the “Invalid network path” error.

The simplest fix is usually to plug both the NAS and the Roon Server into the same router, or to set the second router (TP-Link) to “Bridge Mode/Access Point Mode.”

Standing by for those IP addresses!

11

The NAS IP is 192.168.1.1

The Remote IP is 192.168.1.237

12

I assume this confirms they are on separate subnets.

You have already sent me instructions for putting the TP-Link in AP mode, but you asked me to confirm whether the TP-Link is connected to the Fios router by a long Ethernet cable. The cable is 9 feet.

13

Hi @Christopher_Finan,

Technically, the IP addresses you’ve shared above show that both machines are actually on the same local subnet.

That said, there does appear to be multiple subnets at play from your recent Roon devices:

192.168.68.yy
and 
192.168.1.yy

If you can, see about temporarily disabling all but a single subnet, and reboot your router and Roon devices, and see if that may help. :+1:

14

So I will be:

  1. disconnecting the TP-Link from the router
  2. rebooting the router and the Roon software on my PC
  3. reconnecting the TP-Link

Am I missing anything?

16

Hey @Christopher_Finan,

Thanks for the reply! You are partially on the right track, but not fully, let me break it down more specifically.

The problems with your steps you’ve listed:

  • Step 3 is counterproductive. If reconnecting the TP-Link is what's creating the second subnet (192.168.68.x), plugging it back in defeats the entire purpose of the test.
  • Step 2 is incomplete — you should also reboot the Synology NAS, not just the router and Roon software.
What the steps should actually look like:
  1. Disconnect the TP-Link from the Fios router
  2. Reboot the Fios router, the Synology NAS, and Roon on the PC
  3. Test whether Roon can connect to the NAS
  4. (Only if it works) Then reconfigure the TP-Link in Access Point/Bridge mode before reconnecting it — so it stops generating its own 192.168.68.x subnet
In short, you should not reconnect the TP-Link as-is after rebooting, that's the source of the second subnet. The fix requires either leaving it disconnected for testing, or reconfiguring it to AP mode before plugging it back in.

We’ll be monitoring for your reply, thank you! :folded_hands:

17

Sounds good. One question: Assuming Roon is working, how do I reconfigure the TP-Link without plugging it back into the router, creating the second subnet? Do I plug it back it back in, reconfigure and then reboot everything again?