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!