Losing connection/sync to DAC

Hi, not sure what’s going on, but I am listening to music on PC Roon Core 1.7 (521) to RPi (4b, Digi+ Pro) RoPieee 1.0 (171) and the sound just drops out randomly. Solution is to reboot DAC to restore sound. Network is fully wired, no wifi. Roon library resides on a Synology DS214 NAS.

DAC is Modi Multibit SP/DIF

Ref: b0f8d8d9df05d2ca

Thank you very much for any help

another data point

Identifier: d7ce8823322a2c82

Hi @Heath_Innes,

That’s annoying…

I can’t find anything out of the ordinary in the logs, both for RoPieee and RAAT (Roon).

So maybe we can figure out where the problem is: what happens if you run the DAC over USB?

I’ve had this happen a couple of times recently. I start off listening to music ok then within a minute or two everything stops and I have to reboot the Pi for the DAC to reappear in Roon.

I’ve sent feedback. Unique identifier f45388e083a5dc4e

Feedback after a reboot doesn’t have the necessary info.
So… when this happens… does it come back after some time?

After a reboot it comes back pretty much straight away. Next time I’ll send the feedback before rebooting.

The root of the problem I had was the DIGI+ Pro has a transformer (providing a full galvanic isolation between the Raspberry Pi and your DAC). The output transformer is shielded. To make sure the shielding works, your DAC needs to be grounded. My external DAC is the Modi Multibit which isn’t grounded. In that situation you must use the TOSlink, as advised by Daniel at Hifiberry.

Happened again. Just submitted feedback before rebooting. Unique ID is 137c304cde04d60d

Ok thanks.

Problem is that the device disconnects from the USB bus, after an initial time-out.
I assume that a reboot is not necessary, but a DAC unplug/plug will fix the issue.

However, it is of course very strange that the DAC disconnects. So, anything special with the power supply?

To be honest, this never seemed to happen until comparatively recently. There is nothing special about the power supply for either the Pi or the DAC. Also, you say “time-out” but this happens in the middle of a song playing.

Weird. This might sound stupid. but can you connect the DAC on a different USB port?

I assume you mean different port on the Pi? I’ll give it a try now…

yeah sorry. exactly that.

Given how much you’ve done for the community there’s no need to apologise especially given it should have been obvious enough without me needing clarification!

It was previously connected via one of the USB2.0 ports, I’ve now switched it over to one of the USB3.0 ports.

Unfortunately this has happened again even after switching to another USB (3) port. Feedback sent af11d3e865f4bf95

Hmmm… basically the same as last time: there’s an error on the USB bus and the DAC is disconnected.

But, looking ‘around’ that time I see some dropouts too. So I’m wondering if this could be a network issue resulting in a disconnect from the DAC.

Any changes on your end wrt to infrastructure?

Yes, there has been a change. When I first started using the Pi with Ropieee last December I was with a different ISP and modem/router. I changed over at the end of January and things were initially fine but there have been some connectivity issues (WAN side) over the past couple of weeks.

The drop-outs and fall-off this time happened when I was listening to some music streamed via TIDAL although I think in the past it has possibly also been local content which should (in theory) rule out the WAN connectivity. I don’t know whether the router is also to blame here?

Ok, is it possible to test if this is Tidal related?

Sure.

For the timebeing I’ll restrict myself to local catalogue and keep an eye on things. If there are no problems it’s obviously just a TIDAL/internet connectivity issue. Given how flakey the connection has been over the past few weeks, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s the case!

Hi - it’s just bombed out on me again, this time whilst listening to locally stored content. Unique identifier ff2f80c110207398