· Challenges with Roon ARC (Android), Downloads, & Android Auto Because of the way my network is setup, I can't use UPNP for Roon ARC. Therefore, I configure downloads. When looking in Roon ARC at the section that should show me the music I have downloaded, I can only see about 5 albums listed... I have many, many more. When I look at this in Android Auto, I am pretty sure I can see all of them.
When I use Android Auto, I cannot browse by Artist. Very frustrating.
It's about a 30% hit rate that I can actually play music through Android Auto in the car without a complete reboot of both my phone and the the car. Often even with that, it will only look like its playing and no sound comes through.
I love Roon at home, and when I connect to my home network using VPN outside of the car Roon ARC is mostly brilliant! I just really need things to work in the car as that is where I do most of my listening on the go.
Many thanks!
Paul
Tell us about your home network
· OPNsense firewall, TP-Link managed switch. Roon Server running in a docker container with library on a NAS. Unfortunately service provider will not do a transparent bridge for me so I cannot use UPnP. Mostly Wifi at home... no issues with anything running in the house... only when on the go. Let me know if you need any further info - I am technical and able to dig into most things.
Hey @Paul_Stillwell, welcome to the community, and thanks for laying out the details so clearly.
This sounds like a mix of ARC download visibility, Android Auto browsing, and playback reliability in the car, so we should separate those a bit.
For ARC downloads, the first thing we want to confirm is whether the missing albums are actually marked for offline use in ARC, or whether they are just available in your Roon library at home. In ARC, downloads are managed locally on the phone, and the app will only show content that has been downloaded there. If you have multiple libraries or a large downloaded set, it would also help to know how many albums you expect to see, and whether the missing ones are all from the same streaming service or all local files.
For the Android Auto behavior, there are two things we should check: whether browsing by Artist is missing from the Android Auto interface itself, or whether it is present but empty, and whether the playback failures happen only after ARC has been connected to the car. A few things would help us narrow this down further:
What phone model and Android version are you using?
Is ARC installed alongside the regular Roon Remote app on that phone?
When Android Auto shows playback but no sound comes through, does the track timer advance, or does it stay stuck?
Since the in-car playback issue may be tied to connectivity, we’d also like to enable diagnostics on your account and then have you note the exact local time, date, and what was playing the next time it happens, so we can review the logs around that window.
If you can share those details, we can start separating what is ARC-specific from what is Android Auto-specific.