· Other
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I can't seem to listen to Internet radio. Every station I try has the same result. BluOS on my Node endpoint has no issue connecting to any of the same stations.
Wired with Cat6. TP-Link unmanaged network switches. Internet access is via an Xfinity modem.
Hi @Dave_Lampson ,
It doesn’t look like I am able to locate that station on my end, is this a custom radio station? If you try to play a station from Internet Radio in the sidebar that is part of our directory, does that work? Does the issue affect FLAC stations as well?
That was just an example. I’ve tried many stations that are listed in Roon Live Radio, including WFMT. Same result. The very first day I got ROCK running I could connect to any radio station. Now, nothing. The message is always “Playback interrupted because a track failed to load”. The Bluesound Node (my endpoint) can connect to any of these same stations without an issue, so I’ve been using that for radio.
Hi @Dave_Lampson,
Would you like to continue to troubleshoot Roon’s live radio feature? If so please reproduce the failure and let us know the date an time that it happened. If not we can just close the thread for you. Let us know what you would prefer.
Yes, the live radio feature continues to be a problem. Time and date? Anytime I try an connect to ANY radio station, like just now 1/5/2025 at 10:20AM. Here’s how it looked… after I clicked on WFMT and then clicked on Play Now. It’s the same behavior for all stations and all attempts to connect.
All the streams of WFMT are AAC or MP3. Did you try FLAC streams, too? If not, search for Radio Paradise Rock Mix. It has a FLAC and AAC/MP3 streams. Does the FLAC maybe work and the AAC/MP3 fail?
Interesting idea, Suedkiez, but no results found. I can’t find to any of the
This is the filter - this only filters the stations that are already on the Live Radio page (because they are local, have been recently played, etc).
Use the global search instead:
Click See All Results or press Enter:
Great suggestion! It works. So, what does this tell us?
Most likely that you never installed the necessary codecs that are needed by ROCK to decode AAC and MP3. I suppose that when Live Radio worked for you in the past, you just happened to try a FLAC stream.
Provide the codecs to ROCK as described here:
Unfortunately, the instructions don’t seem to match the current software. And reading through the description, I can’t make sense of it? Files in root directories?
Descriptions such as “Note that the file must be called ffmpeg and must live in the /Data/Codecs/ directory in your Roon OS’s network share (so make sure you uncompress the .xz file). The ffmpeg must be a statically linked Linux ELF x64 binary. One place you can get those here: John Van Sickle - FFmpeg Static Builds” tell me absolutely nothing about how to install a codec. Any insights would be most appreciated. I’m really confused because I have a high quality DAC, and I though ROON worked in the digital domain, so why is there any need for a DA codec?
The first steaming station I tried was WFMT out of Chicago. I listened for over an hour. They don’t have a FLAC stream.
Go to http://rock in a web browser. Does it say „missing codecs“?
Yes, sir, it does.
I’ve read through the installation instructions for the ffmpeg (and downloaded a file and uncompressed it), but they seem to apply to Linux. So the installation instructions don’t make much sense in a Windows environment.
OK, so it very much looks like you never installed it. (I know of no case where the codec file disappeared on its own).
What’s weird is that WFMT ever worked for you. MP3 and AAC definitely can’t work on ROCK without installing the codecs first. Maybe they once had a FLAC stream? That’s unlikely, though. But whatever, we know now what is wrong, so we can fix it.
First just a little explanation, though:
The MP3 and AAC codecs are patent encumbered and a commercial entity can’t really distribute them without paying license fees.
They are needed because in Roon the server does all the work and sends the decoded stream (as PCM samples) to the endpoint. As the decoding happens on the server, the server needs the codecs.
On Windows and Mac, they come with the operating system. (On Linux they are easy to install for the user). On Nucleus, Roon Labs installs them out of the box and pays the fees. However, Roon Labs gives ROCK away and they have decided (understandably) that they can’t shoulder the fee for that.
The instructions could be better, indeed. I didn’t write them 
It’s doable, though:
OK, you managed the hardest part. (Again, if you didn’t get this far because there was a log-in error, let me know)
@Daniel: The help page really should provide step-by-step instructions that don’t skip over steps that aren’t at all obvious to Windows users. It should also provide separate instructions for Windows and Mac because the steps differ; Mac automatically performs at least the first step automatically after downloading, i.e., the tar.xz → tar decompression.
Wow, I am so grateful for this. Your write-up is clear and concise, and much appreciated. I followed your instructions and put the ffmpeg file in the Codecs folder. Rebooted (power cycled) the ROCK computer (a NUC) and tried to connect to radio. Unfortunately, it still wouldn’t play - same behavior. One bit of ambiguity is which file to download. As my NUC is a Intel-based, I downloaded
ffmpeg-git-20240629-i686-static
rather than what appeared to be AMD codecs. Is that correct?
Once again, thanks so much for the assistance.
No, the one stated in the help is correct, „amd64“. This has historical reasons. (Excursion: AMD builds Intel- compatible CPUs (AMD is not the same as ARM). amd64 is the architectural name for 64bit x86 instruction extensions, designed by AMD and cross-licensed with Intel for x86 compatibility into the 64bit era. Intel had their own design which failed in the non-server mass market, so the regular Intel CPUs ended up with the amd64 architecture as well.)
I am not sure that using the i686 variant is causing the failure, I think it should work, too, just less efficiently. But try with the amd64 version, which is known to work for sure. If it doesn‘t post screenshots of what you are seeing.
It worked! I now have radio! Thanks very much.
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