My Mini is also in my listening room and sits on top of my DAC. Hardwired into stereo they a hi face2. My biggest concern about a RAID or NAS or plain d external drive is any heat or more importantly noise that would impact listening experience Current Mac Minis can only have a two TB internal drive so I will have to get the externals
Well I’ve ordered my new Mini. Now my question is best way to get Roon and iTunes set up. One possible challenge is new computer will be running Catalina and old 2012 one had older OS and of course backup of Roon was under that OS. If I use Time Machine backup will Roon automatically work in Catalina or are their steps I need to take? Advice appreciated
Time Machine back-ups are not compatible with Roon. You should reference this instead:
https://kb.roonlabs.com/Migration
EDIT: Revised to be definitive as per Slim’s subsequent message.
Don’t do that.
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I have looked at the migration instructions and the advice on this forum. My question is my only copy of my Roon library and associated iTunes library are on a backup drive that was set up by time machine. There is a Roon backup file on the Time Machine backup drive. So what is best way to migrate Roon from that backup?
In Roon on your old machine, Settings==>Backups
Then in Roon on your new mchine, Settings==>Backups==>Find Backups.
My answer to the link I referenced above -
I think Joe’s issue (@Joe_Bornstein please correct me if I am wrong) is that the original Mac Mini is now toast, and all he has are the Time Machine back-ups to work with.
Is it possible to restore the iTunes library from Time Machine and then create a new Roon database from that on the replacement? It’s not ideal given the size of his library, but at least he can restore the library that way.
Aha, don’t read way up top. A dead Mac was also the problem in the other thread.
Probably not. It’s still a Time Machine backup library, although once removed.
Three’s no good solution for this. In the other thread the problem with a Time Machine backup was immediately apparent and probably would be here also. The other danger is that any problem with a restore won’t show up until down the road and then as an unusable corrupted library.
My final reply in the other thread was -
It still holds.
Tagging @support, just in case.
So if I cannot use the Time Machine version I guess I will just have to rebuild Roon from scratch. What will I lose besides Roon’s records of what of I have played or like to play? Can I just open Roon app, put in my subscription information and point it to my iTunes library and set up new?
Yes. You’ll lose everything that you’ve curated within Roon.
It will be just as it was when you used Roon for the first time.
Wait for the final word from @support.
Don’t forget to set up Roon Backups.
What is best way to contact Roon support?
I just did that for you when I tagged them… They’ll be along shortly.
I’m also going to move this thread to the support section of the forum.
Good luck.
Hi @Joe_Bornstein,
This is Noris from Roon Labs Support here.
@xxx is correct here, we have seen unstable behavior when trying to restore backups that were a snapshot of the “Live Database”, which is why we suggest against using these kinds of backups in our Backup Documentation:
Using Other Backup Applications
Because the Roon database is frequently being updated in the background with new metadata, cover art, artist information, and more, backing up your “live” Roon database using external programs can result in corrupt backups.
We strongly recommend against using Time Machine, Crashplan, Backblaze, or other backup applications to backup your “live” Roon database.
If you do not have a proper Roon backup (that you made using the internal backup manager), then you would unfortunately need to start fresh and re-import your content.
If you have a streaming service, your content from there should import once you login to Roon. As for the iTunes library, if you point Roon to the media files they will start to import and get re-added to the new database. If you have any iTunes playlists, you can re-import those as well, see Importing Playlists Guide.
Thank You. I was backing up Roon using Roon utility. But backup was on same drive as Roon. So now that computer is dead. If I use time machine to make an exact copy of everything that was on that drive on my new computer would the Roon backup that there work?
If you made a backup from within Roon first and Time Machine backed that folder, then yes it should work.
By “Live Database” here we mean snapshots that have been taken directly from ~Library/Roon on your Mac with Time Machine, those are the problematic ones we’ve seen.
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At least you have nothing to lose at this point. I hope it works out (and I would be curious to hear what happens)!
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I have taken a hard drive out of a bust Mac mini and attached it to a new one and it could still be read. May be worth trying to get the files off.
Thanks. I resolved my issue and all was saved. New Mac Mini and external 4TB drive all working well. And Roon great, although sometimes the iPhone app can’t find an audio zone
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Hi @Joe_Bornstein,
Happy to hear that the issue is resolved!
If this happens, I would try to do a force-quit of the Roon app and re-open it, this might help:
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