Intermittent Hanging of RoonAppliance on Mac mini M4 (ref#VB7UD4)

Support
1

What best describes your playback issue?

· Music doesn't start when I press "Play"

What type of Zone is affected by this problem?

· *All of my Zones* are affected.

Does the issue affect all file formats?

· The issue affects *multiple/all* file formats.

Does the issue happen with local library music, streaming service music, or both?

· *Both streaming and local* *library* music are affected.

Do you encounter any playback errors with the "System Output" Zone?

· The System Output has *no problem*, it's only my other Zone.

How is the affected Zone connected to your RoonServer machine?

· Network - Ethernet

Which network audio protocol is the Zone using with Roon?

· RoonReady

Does the device show up at all in Roon Settings -> Audio?

· No, it does not show up there

Does the device play audio from another source when using the same connection?

· The device has no problems with another audio source

Have you checked that Roon is whitelisted in any firewalls?

· I've checked the firewall and the issue remains

If the device has multiple output options, do the other options work as expected?

· Only one output type is affected while the other output type works as expected

Is the device using the latest firmware as per the manufacturer?

· Firmware is up-to-date but the issue remains

Do you have an approximate timestamp of when the issue last occurred?

· No exact Timestamp. About 11 o clock this morning.

What are the make and model of the affected audio device(s) and the connection type?

· Again, the players/streamers are changing. Currently: Eversolo T8, Matrix Audio MD-1P, Cambridge EVO 300 and others.

Describe the issue

The Process RoonAppliance on Roon Server is hanging from time to time for no obvious reason. I have to restart the process manually using the Activity Monitor of my Mac mini M4. After that, music is playing as expected. – Until the

Describe your network setup

Mac Mini M4 as Roon Server, connected via LAN (Wi-Fi also active as fallback). Remotes are other Macs, iPhone, iPad. Streamers are constantly changing, because I am a reviewer. Problem does not seem to be related to the players used.

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Hi @Frank_Borowski,

Thank you for your post.

What is the particular symptom you see in Roon (the GUI) when this occurs? It appears some of the content of your description in your post above was cut off.

Logs show Roon Server arresting playback at 0:00 on a Stevie Ray Vaughan track from Qobuz around the timestamp you mentioned. Repeated physical play/pause commands don’t seem to have registered with Roon Server, which suggests this might match the pattern to which you’re referring.

However, we don’t see logging ever stop, which suggests that RoonAppliance itself isn’t hanging. We also don’t see any obvious signs of memory pressure or other background strain on the server itself.

As a first test, try disabling the WiFi on the Mac Mini if you have the Ethernet interface enabled. We see Roon switching back and forth between the two available network interfaces, which can cause endpoint instability. This won’t necessarily cause an application hang, but it could cause you to lose sight of endpoints intermittently.

We recognize that it’s agnostic to the Zone, or that you’re changing Zones frequently enough that no single Zone is particularly useful to isolate as a variable. But does this issue reproduce with both local files and streaming service files? What about with different file formats?

We’ll watch for your response.

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Hi there!

Thanks for the support. Some information did indeed get lost in my description above (I had pressed the return key to start a new line in the form, but the page submitted it—without giving me the option to correct it afterward). Anyway:

It’s a glitch where I can’t detect any pattern at all. I listen to music for hours without any problems. Every now and then, I have to pause playback to answer a phone call or make adjustments to the system. Then, every once in a while, I can’t resume the track I last paused. The progress bar keeps moving back and forth, which probably indicates that Roon is searching for something.

My first suspicion was an internet issue or an internal network problem, but after ruling those out, I noticed that restarting the Mac mini fixed the issue (which, by the way, runs exclusively as a Roon Server and handles no other tasks; administration is done solely via screen sharing). So it must have something to do with the Roon Server. Later, I was able to narrow the problem down to the RoonAppliance process.

Unfortunately, the error occurs very irregularly. Roughly speaking: every few days, but sometimes at least once on several consecutive days.

At least 90% of the music I listen to is streamed (Qobuz). I haven’t been able to determine yet whether this also happens with tracks from my own library. To test this, I’d have to limit music playback to my library for at least a week. Even if the error doesn’t occur then, that still wouldn’t be a clear indication.

I’ll try turning off Wi-Fi on the Mac mini as a test. However, this isn’t a permanent solution, since Wi-Fi is required for certain administrative tasks, among other things.

The only thing I can say for certain is that the RoonAppliance process has frozen when that happens.

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Hello @Frank_Borowski

Hi Frank, thanks for narrowing this down, that’s helpful.

One thing that would help us tell which known issue this matches: the next time this happens, instead of using Next or Previous, could you please try browsing to a completely different album or track and pressing play on that, rather than anything already in your queue?

If that new track starts playing normally, it suggests the freeze is isolated to that specific stream rather than the whole RoonAppliance process, which points to one known cause. If nothing responds at all, including trying to start something entirely different, and only killing and restarting RoonAppliance in Activity Monitor gets you going again, that points to a different, process-level cause we’ve seen elsewhere.

Also, please continue with the Wi-Fi test connor suggested when you get a chance, that rules out another possibility.

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Hi Vadim.

I will keep an eye on that. Everything has been working normally for the past few days, but that doesn’t mean anything.

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Hello @Frank_Borowski

Understood, and there is no rush. An intermittent fault that goes quiet for a few days is normal and it does not mean anything either way, as you say.

Since it is rare, the most useful thing now is to make sure the next occurrence is not wasted. Please could you capture two things before you restart anything:

First, a sample of the process. This is the piece we are missing. Our logs show Roon Server still writing entries during these events, which usually means the process is alive but stuck waiting on something rather than truly frozen. A sample will show us exactly what it is waiting on, and it settles that question in one go.

Open Terminal on the Mac mini and run:

sample RoonAppliance 15 -file ~/Desktop/roon-sample.txt

It takes fifteen seconds and writes a file to your Desktop. You can also do the same thing from Activity Monitor: select RoonAppliance, click the three dots in the toolbar, and choose Sample Process. Please send us that file.

Second, what Activity Monitor says. When it happens, please check whether RoonAppliance is shown in red with “Not Responding” next to it, or whether it looks normal. That single detail tells us whether the process is genuinely hung or simply not acting on commands, and those are two different problems with two different causes.

Please also note the exact time when you take the sample, so we can line it up with the server logs.

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Hi @Vadim,

Yes, sure. As soon as the problem comes up again, I’ll do both of those things and let you know.

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Hello @Frank_Borowski

Checking in to see if the problem occurs again.

9

Hello @Frank_Borowski,

Have you had a chance to see whether the problem shows up again?

Please note, if we don’t hear back from you this thread may close automatically soon. If the thread auto-closes and you need further assistance, please submit a reopen support request via the technical support help form below and specify that the issue should be reopened. Thank you.

10

Hi @noris

Thank you for following up. Surprisingly, the error hasn’t occurred again so far. If it does happen again later, I’ll get in touch via the support link.

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Hello @Frank_Borowski

Thanks for coming back to let us know, and good news that it has stayed quiet.

We will close this here. If it does return, please open a new thread with a link back to this one so whoever picks it up has the history. It also helps if you note the date and clock time it happens, since that lets us go straight to the right moment in the diagnostics.

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