iPad unable to connect to PC with Core

Roon Core Machine

Windows 10
Machine info:
Model: X64-based PC
CPU: Intel (R) Core ™2 Duo CPU
RAM: 4.00 GB

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Core PC on Ethernet, IPAD on WiFi

Connected Audio Devices

Number of Tracks in Library

Description of Issue

My Roon on iPad has been able to connect to my PC with Core until 3 days ago, when the connection stopped.

When I try to open Roon on my core machine, I have consistently gotten an error message, as follows:

Roon cannot find WGL functions required to initialize OpenGL.

It is likely that the proper drivers for your display hardware are not installed.

Up-to-date drivers should be available from the website of your computer or GPU manufacturer.

However, despite this error message, the connection has worked very well up till now. I have reinstalled Roon on my core PC numerous times, but that has not helped.

I would like to attach the log, but do not know how to do so.

The CPU is below minimum standards which is an i3 or better. And 4 GB on a Windows machine which does other things is also close to the line.

Roon needs OpenGL 3.0. See this FAQ: https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/faq-i-m-getting-an-opengl-error-trying-to-start-roon-what-s-going-on

If you don’t need a gui on that PC, I would suggest using RoonServer which doesn’t have a gui and thus has no OpenGL requirements. Going this route, means you will setup and control the server via a different PC or tablet and not on that machine. If you want to run the graphic version of Roon, you need OpenGL.

Thanks for Rugby’s input. What you say may very well be true, but it does not explain why Roon has worked perfectly well for over a year before I encountered this difficulty; the CPU and RAM were the same when the connection worked as when it did not. A further question: A FAQ suggests that in order for the connection to work, the Core pc and the IPAD have to have the same IP address. At present they do not, but they didn’t when the connection worked either…

It is at least possible that Roon’s requirements grew during that time and an underspecced machine that was barely sufficient a year ago is not sufficient now.

I would recommend following @Rugby’s advice to install Roon server instead. The GUI does not work anyway on this machine and, if I understand you correctly, never has. So you are not losing anything and the Roon Server will most likely work faster as it’s fighting less for resources on the underspecced machine.

However, it’s also possible, maybe likely, that the iPad connection error is completely unrelated. Did you change anything in your network setup or on the PC or iPad?

No, never. IP addresses in a network must be unique. They are literally addresses, and if two devices have the same one, essentially the same happens as with postal mail when two houses have the same address.

Maybe you misunderstood and the FAQ said that that the IP addresses must be on the same network. This is true. There are several networking addressing schemes but home networks usually use IP addresses of class C in the private range 192.168.x.y. In this case (and except in pathological configurations), x is a local subnet and y is the individual machine. So 192.168.1.y is in one subnet, and 192.168.2.y is in another subnet. On the same subnet, like 192.168.1.y, one machine could have the address 192.168.1.1 and another 192.168.1.2 (These machine numbers can go from 1 to 254, so you can have 254 machines in a subnet when using class C addressing. 192.168.x.0 and 192.168.x.255 are special, they are the network address and the network broadcast address, respectively).
Data generally cannot traverse across subnets without special configuration on the router, and Roon does not traverse across subnets either, so all Roon machines that need to talk to each other must be in the same one.

Normally, the router takes care of unique addresses automatically with its DHCP service, and usually they will come from the same subnet. Essentially, when a device comes online, it sends a DHCP request to the router, asking for an IP address, and the router will send it one that is not used by any other device. Unless someone disables DHCP or assigns static addresses on the devices themselves (which is a really bad idea in most home networking situations), this is usually nothing to worry about.

However, some router settings can create different subnets for the wired ethernet and the wifi. In this case, an iPad on the wifi would not be able to talk to a core on the ethernet. So to rule this out, check your devices’ IP addresses with special focus on the subnet part

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Thank you for a very thorough and comprehensive response. I think I will begin by installing the Roon Server without the GUI - can you point me to where I can find it? I am not aware that I changed anything in my network setup or PC or IPAD, except trying to install Roon over and over again.

From the downloads page.

Thank you very much!

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