Information on Roon's March 6, 2024 Connectivity Incident (inability to connect to Roon services, Qobuz, Tidal, and KKBOX)

I run on a old QNAP NAS with QTS 4.3.6.2665, which is the latest update issued on 13/02/2024.

I would need to provide QNAP with the specific component(s) that caused the issue on my NAS.

Are Roon able to provide this information based on my logs?

Do I need to raise a new support issue?

@danny2, our QA team is going to look into your specific case as you should have been in the clear. They’ll activate diagnostics and pull logs to get a better understanding of what failed for you.

@badboygolf16v, we need to look a bit deeper into QNAP’s package content and will be back in touch with an answer.

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The Salk III and III SE ran Intel Quad core i7’s and copious amounts of RAM. What it probably does is run its OS and music storage on the same drive. It doesn’t look as if they have built in DACs other than anything on the motherboard. For me you could abandon the Salkstream operating system in favour of ROCK which will hopefully work but it would take a bit of work and the purchase and installation of an additional SSD for RoonOS. It becomes a dedicated Roon machine and any future updates are automatic leaving you only the age of the hardware to be of any concern. Caveats are you need to be sure of compatibility with ROCK before you start (or make any changes reversible).

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Or use any modern distro. DietPi is a good choice as it stays upto date, is reliable and easy to maintain. I switched to it from Rock as it gives more monitoring and flexibility.

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ROCK keeps things simple once it is installed. I can understand the wish to do more with hardware than simply use Roon but that isn’t really indicated in this case unless the user does more with Salk OS than just use Roon.

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One could argue that it keeps things too simple for its own good… When I think about the many reports of suddenly failed SSD on the forum, I do wonder why there is no SMART monitoring and reporting. Same goes for thermal performance, taking into account how demanding Roon is on CPU and disks. Or the ability to monitor a UPS to which the Roon server computer should be connected…

Simple seems good to me, as long as things are working. As soon as something doesn’t work, the simplicity is a hindrance to proper problem analysis and resolution.

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I greatly appreciate the responses and suggestions. I don’t want to continue off topic with my situation, so I started a separate thread here.

Some additional info about my Salkstream;

When I bought mine in 2016, Salk was using an i5 Intel processor with 8gb RAM and a single HDD that houses Roonserver and my music collection. This still works fine for me.

I’d greatly appreciate feedback in the thread I linked. Thanks! :grinning:

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Given all the recent performance issues this allows you to monitor what Roon is actually doing. The rest is install and forget. I’ve used rock for years I don’t miss the simplicity and I don’t miss the blind trust.

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I want to summarize my response to our weekly meet group because I think it’s important.

First, I love Roon. I love Roon more when they show transparency like this. Thank you. Long live Roon Labs!

Now, onto my rant…
We, we as in you and me, are using a shared resource to make Roon function. If your actions contribute to a Roon outage then you impact the we. I don’t think anyone here wants to contribute to a Roon outage but, sadly, some people inadvertently are. And, your actions are not isolated to just Roon but a whole host of services across this shared resource we call The Internet and The Cloud.

Not just Roon, but every application you use relies on these “industry-standard protocols”. Most applications don’t actually know how to “talk to the Internet”. They ask the operating system “hey, I need this thing to get to this thing out on the Internet” and the operating system takes the data from the application and figures it out.

That works great because application developers don’t need to know anything about The Internet or how it functions. They literally hand the data to the operating system.

But, let’s think about that relationship for a moment… The Internet is a hostile place and getting more hostile. I’m talking about security. We all have a duty, as good netizens, to help protect this shared resource. Now, a lot of us fulfill this duty by simply keeping our operating systems up to date. When an exploit, at the network layer, is identified that’s solved by updating your OS. Remember, applications just hand data to the OS to move it around The Internet. As soon as we’ve updated our operating system all our applications are now protected because they all rely on the OS to provide this service.

I’m simplifying things greatly here but I need to get to this point:
Hifi manufacturers are, for the most part, terrible netizens.

Streamers / digital transports are computers. Your receiver, plugged into your network, is a computer. Anything in your hifi, that you’ve plugged into your network, has compute resources in it. And, to be a good netizen, you need to be using “industry-standard protocols for network communication”. Those standards change. The security mechanisms and trust mechanisms change. That 6 year old bit of hifi kit that hasn’t had it’s operating system updated in the past 6 years? It’s out of date and we should all be upset you still have it connected to The Internet (don’t worry I’m guilty of this too). Your opening up a vulnerability in our shared resource (maybe). Shame on you :wink:

But, honestly, it’s not your fault. We expect our Hifi to be lifetime purchases. We must get out of this mindset for things connected to The Internet. We must do better and we must demand accountability from our manufacturers. Here’s how to do that:

  1. When you buy a device ask to see their lifecycle for updates, security patches, support, etc… That is, get in writing:
  • What is the date for end of life for updates?
  • What is the date for end of life for security patches?
  • What is the date for end of life for support, both hardware and software?
  1. Unplug and replace these devices once you can no longer get security updates or sooner.

Now, most Hifi manufacturers won’t have answers to these questions because they are terrible at software. Most should outright tell you that they have zero plan for security updates at all. Meaning, the thing is already end of life sitting on your Hifi dealers shelves. Don’t buy this stuff if you want to be a good netizen.

Now, should Roon continue to provide workarounds for the 0.01% who got caught-up in bad manufacturers practices of abandoning their software? Does it make us all just a little more vulnerable on our shared resource? Probably not this time… but things change quickly and I’m seeing more and more where deployments break non-updated operating systems. I’m also seeing services reduce support trying to accommodate either because of resources or real security concerns. This issue will only get worse if we don’t demand real lifecycle plans from manufacturers.

Anyway, that’s my rant. Key take away…

  • Anything plugged into The Internet is not a buy-once lifetime product no matter how expensive it is.
  • Stop buying connected things from manufacturers who have no plan to keep the underlying operating system updated.
  • For stuff you already own from these “bad” manufacturers, sorry, but it really is time to unplug and replace them.
  • and, nowhere did I mention the age of hardware. This problem is related to age of underlying operating system and a manufacturers, or your, ability to keep it updated to ever revolving industry standards.

thanks for reading.

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I’m the opposite. And I guess the beauty of Roon is choice. Simplicity is key, trust is OK. Roon won’t deliberately sabotage their product.

So incredibly true. I’d never buy a system to run Roon Server on from a hi-fi dealer, or from someone who claims to build “audiophile computers”. Buy computers from computer dealers that sell systems from computer manufacturers.

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Is this perhaps overly optimistic? Which partners distribute server products? SalkSound doesn’t seem to be on Roon’s list of partners, even though the SalkStream is advertised as “Roon Ready”.

Two oldish ('18 and '20) Small Green Computer SonicTransporter i5’s with updated firmware here.

The latest Roon update worked fine for me on both this morning. Roon is as fast as it’s been in a good while. Much relieved.

Thanks!

@AMP
Is IPv6 required/mandatory or RoonServer can work fine with IPv4 only (and IPv6 disabled)? Is IPv6 considered to be a basic TCP/IP networking package (from RoonServer perspective)?

i bought a merging power + player thats sounds amazing neutral real sound. cost me $30000 AUD. pretty disappointed that they have a sub par computer system in it. I thought it was meant to be the poster child of roon! heard that somewhere.

great sound sub par computer. good one merging

I have IPv6 disabled on my Debian Linux Roon Server, and my Internet connection is IPv4 only. All working perfectly.

2 posts were split to a new topic: Connectivity problems with Qobuz and Tidal the whole day,

Roon use to have a section of their Partners list that included devices like the Salkstream (Salk was listed as a partner when I bought in 2016). I’m not sure exactly when or why Roon stopped listing such devices.

When Roon stopped listing such devices/partners, I remember asking about it and was assured by Roon and Salk that Salk devices would continue to receive support just as they always had. When I’ve needed support from Roon, it was never said my Salkstream was an unsupported device.

Of course Salk is no more, but Jim Salk has generously offered to continue support. I’m not sure how this will play out on Roon’s side.

I imagine that’s why they’re not listed under partners, then.

Just to be clear, the change of the way Roon listed partners occurred long before the recent retirement of Salk.