Is it time for "Qobuz Failures" to be addressed on more than a case by case basis?

[seth_Godin1 (seth Godin)]

This has been an issue on the forum for more than a year. It’s widespread, the error messages are inaccurate and the hardworking tech support team rarely seems to accomplish much other than having the user go away, frustrated at all the dancing required.

https://community.roonlabs.com/search?q=qobuz%20failures

Can a senior tech help us understand what’s happening here? From what I can tell from the messages:

1. Qobuz works fine on other devices when Roon shows the error. In other words, Qobuz through its app isn’t failing, something is happening in the API between Roon and Qobuz. Can you help us understand why and how this occurs and what actually remedies it?

2. There’s some thought that the resolution set in Roon has something to do with it, but again, I’m not seeing a definitive workaround here.

3. There’s some superstition that clearing a cache makes a difference, but again, I’m not seeing any actual evidence that it’s actually effective and worth the hassle.

The response to errors like I’m experiencing now involves posting the topology, sacrificing a chicken, clearing a cache, chanting an incantation–and then sighing and living without it for a while and sometimes it comes back.

More information and a better process (is there always a different problem or is it always the same problem? If it’s always the same problem, where’s the definitive doc on what to do?) would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[dylan (Dylan Caudill)]

Hi Seth, I appreciate you reaching out to us about this!

I head up the Technical Support team at Roon and would be happy to give some insight into what you’re seeing and offer to help you get this resolved.

First, I wanted to address that pattern that you’ve noticed on Community when it comes to issues with Qobuz playback. While for a majority of our user base Qobuz playback works fine, there are definitely more reports that streaming Qobuz hi-res content fails compared to any other type of content. While this is true, it also isn’t unexpected.

Qobuz hi-res streaming is more demanding than streaming any other type of content and it means that the Core and the network need to be up to the task. Because it is more demanding it tends to expose issues in the local environment more than any other type of content.

When we start troubleshooting, though, we are careful to not make assumptions. We always ask for certain details about your setup and some common troubleshooting steps (rebooting, trying different endpoints, lowering streaming quality, etc.) because this ensures that we are coming at the problem with all of the necessary information.

We have regular meetings with both our QA team and our senior development team to review issues that come up and make sure that there aren’t underlying problems in the software and, when there are, we make sure they are tracked and resolved. Tracking and resolving these types of issues can only be done if we have all of the appropriate information.

Upon reading your post I went back and looked at the last couple months (Since July 1st) of “Qobuz Failures” reported to the support team. When filtering the results to only show reports since July 1st, we found there to be roughly 12 reports. Of those 12, only 6 of them were specific to Qobuz playback problems. 2 were fixed by resolving networking issues, 1 was resolved by switching from an underpowered Core, 1 was an account-specific issue that we are investigating, and the last 2 are still under investigation.

That’s not to say there aren’t issues with our Qobuz implementation currently — We have recently identified that there are some cases where tracks are no longer available from Qobuz (both in the Qobuz app and in Roon) but for albums in your library we aren’t properly showing the Unavailable indicator. We have a ticket in about this and our QA team is currently investigating this further.

To summarize all of the above: We investigate each report thoroughly, loop in our senior technical staff, and do our best to resolve customer issues either by making changes to our application where necessary or by helping to identify environmental issues.

I’d be happy to take a look into your specific issue, either here or we can take it private if you’d prefer, but ultimately the best way for us to identify the issue is to investigate your report thoroughly. I’m confident we can get you up and running one way or another

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out!

[seth_Godin1 (seth Godin)]

thanks @dylan

I appreciate the clear and quick response. I can only imagine how difficult it is to deal with a hi-rez signal via a flaky API and so many installs.

I’ve actually had Qobuz problems since you launched it. In different topologies, with different symptoms. I regularly see items that then can’t be played. I regularly get ‘too many failures’. And then, for a month or two, it works great.

I’ve got a super simple setup, with a Nucleus via ethernet to a hub to a wireless extender and then via wifi to Verizon at 100+ speeds. I’m going to install a mesh network when it arrives on Wednesday to see if that makes a difference.

If it’s afflicting something this simple, I can only imagine.

I guess what I’m hoping for is a combination of self-service explanation and diagnostics together with a non-self-service tool that lets you snoop my setup quickly and without fuss to see where it’s breaking. Given the persistence of the problem, and its elusive nature, both seem like reasonable investments.

Thanks again for raising your hand on this one, and I’ll stand by for instructions. Hopefully, it’ll help some others as well.

[dylan (Dylan Caudill)]

Thanks for the details, @seth_Godin1!

Getting started with our troubleshooting, I’d like to try to get a little more information about what you’re experiencing. Your setup sounds pretty simple, which is great because it limits the number of variables we are working with here.

Initial Thoughts

@seth_Godin1

I’ve got a super simple setup, with a Nucleus via ethernet to a hub to a wireless extender and then via wifi to Verizon at 100+ speeds.

@seth_Godin1

I’m going to install a mesh network

This is something that we note in our Networking Guide — We find that range extenders can be hit and miss in terms of reliability, especially when it comes to devices connecting over the local network. In our experience mesh networks work much more reliably (I personally use Eero mesh which has worked great for me).

It’s way too early to know if that could be playing into things, but I’m definitely curious to know if there is any improvement with the mesh network. I know you said this has been an issue in other environments as well, so I’m not expecting this to resolve everything, but I’d expect the network to generally be much more reliable with a mesh network in place.

Data Gathering

@seth_Godin1

I regularly get ‘too many failures’. And then, for a month or two, it works great.

Intermittent issues like this are definitely more tricky to troubleshoot. If something is consistently breaking it’s easy to track down where this might be stemming from, but being unable to reliably reproduce can make it more difficult. What I’d like to focus on is whether or not you’ve noticed any patterns at all:

• Does this tend to happen with any specific endpoint more than others?
• Do these issues tend to pop up at certain times of day?
• When this happens, are you able to immediately choose other Qobuz content and have it work, or is all Qobuz content unable to be played when in this state?

If we can identify any patterns that will definitely help us track things down.

Diagnostics

Finally, I’d like to enable diagnostics on your account. Our diagnostics report can generally give us a bit of information about what happens during a failure and will be helpful in tracking things down. For us to successfully analyze the diagnostics report, when you next experience an issue, here’s what we’ll need to know:

• What time did the error occur?
• What track was playing (or trying to be played) when the error occurred?
• If you try to play the track again does it start? What if you try a different track?

Let us know that information and we’ll enable diagnostics and work with our QA team to analyze the report. This should be a great starting place for us.

I’m on vacation for the next couple days, so our other senior tech @noris will be picking this up in my absence moving forward.

Thanks for working with us on this, Seth! I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of what’s been causing these issues for you before long.

[seth_Godin1 (seth Godin)]

thanks @dylan and hi @noris

the mesh network is here. The price has gone down a lot. MYMesh works right out of the box, easy to set up and it seems to have solved my problem.

will report back if it didn’t!

[noris]

Hello @seth_Godin1,

Thank you for letting us know that the mesh network has helped! Hopefully the new networking gear resolves the previous issues once and for all, but if you are still seeing problematic behavior in Roon, please just let us know the answers to Dylan’s above questions and we can certainly take a closer look. Thanks!