MacBook Pro audio endpoint and USB Scarlett 2i2 not recognized by Roon Core on Mac Mini (ref#V1M1Y3)

Tom_Doherty · August 2, 2026, 4:45pm

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· None of the above quite fits

None of the above quite fits

· None of these quite match

Tell us what's going on

· Core on a Mac Mini. My MacBook Pro connects as a remote and controls fine, but it does not appear as an audio endpoint. Its local USB Scarlett 2i2 shows on no device’s Audio page (not the laptop’s, not my iPad’s), only as an AirPlay zone. It used to appear as a native endpoint. How do I re-enable the MacBook as an audio output endpoint so its USB devices are presented to the Core?

My setup:
Core (server): Mac Mini, running the current Roon (Roon 2.0, build 1671), macOS 15.1. This is my Core and must stay the Core. It feeds a McIntosh preamp optically and plays hi-res, which works perfectly and I don’t want to disturb it.
Remote: MacBook Pro, same Roon build (1671), macOS 15.1, on the same subnet. Connects to the Mini as a remote and controls playback normally.
Also a remote: iPad (Roon app), used to confirm the Scarlett is absent from every device’s Audio page, not just the laptop’s.
The audio device: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB, connected to the MacBook. macOS on the MacBook sees it fine (it appears in System Settings > Sound and in Audio MIDI Setup as a healthy standalone device, 2 in / 2 out, not part of any aggregate or multi-output device).

What changed:
This started after I resolved a Core conflict. The MacBook had at some point been running as a Core/server itself and was competing with the Mini for Core status. To fix that, I quit Roon on the laptop and renamed its ~/Library/RoonServerand ~/Library/RoonMounts folders (to -OLD) so the laptop would stop trying to be a Core. After that, the Mini reclaimed Core cleanly and everything on the Mini side works. But since then, the MacBook no longer presents itself as an audio endpoint, and the Scarlett is gone from every Audio page.

What I’ve already tried:
Fully quit and relaunched Roon on the MacBook (confirmed no Roon processes running via pgrep before relaunching).
Completely uninstalled and reinstalled the Roon app on the MacBook, then connected to the Mini as a remote (did not choose “Start Roon server on this Mac”).
Rebooted the MacBook.
Clicked the refresh control on the Audio page.
Confirmed in Audio MIDI Setup that the Scarlett is a healthy standalone device (no aggregate/multi-output device involved).
Confirmed macOS output can be set to the Scarlett and it plays fine outside Roon (Qobuz to the Scarlett works, so the hardware and driver are good).

What I observe now:
On the MacBook’s Audio page, the “This Mac” section shows the Mini’s CoreAudio devices, not the laptop’s, suggesting the page is showing the Core’s local devices. The MacBook only appears far down under “Other network devices” as an AirPlay2 target (“Tom Laptop,” AirPlay2), never as a machine presenting its own USB/CoreAudio outputs. The Scarlett appears nowhere as a native endpoint on any device (MacBook or iPad).

My question:
How do I get the MacBook to register as an audio output endpoint again (present its local USB devices like the Scarlett to the Core) while keeping the Mac Mini as the sole Core? Did renaming the RoonServer/RoonMounts folders on the laptop disable the endpoint (Bridge) component, and if so, what’s the correct way to re-enable it on the current build without turning the MacBook back into a competing Core?

Tell us about your home network

· Pakedge RK1 Pakedge 24-8 Switch

vadim · August 3, 2026, 1:06pm

Hello @Tom_Doherty

Since you’re running macOS, the behavior you’re seeing is consistent with the newer, stricter Local Network permission controls in the recent macOS releases.

Please try the following steps:

Open macOS System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network
Make sure Roon and Roon Server are both enabled
Even if they are already enabled, please toggle them off and back on
Fully quit Roon Server from the macOS menu bar / task bar
Reboot your Mac
After reboot, launch Roon again and check if the devices is avaliable again.

Once these permissions are refreshed and the system restarted, your audio devices should reappear.

Please let us know if the issue persists after these steps, and we’ll continue from there.

Tom_Doherty · August 3, 2026, 3:29pm

Hi Vadim, thank you, I worked through your steps and want to give you a complete picture of where things landed, because I think we’ve isolated the actual problem.

First, on your instructions: I only ever see “Roon” listed under System Settings, Privacy & Security, Local Network, never a separate “Roon Server” entry, on either machine. On the Mac Mini (my Core) there is likewise only one Roon app, no separate RoonServer app. I toggled Local Network permission off and on for Roon on both machines, fully quit, and rebooted both.

My setup, for context: the Mac Mini is my Roon Core, running headless, optical out to a McIntosh preamp, library on a Synology NAS. The MacBook Pro is meant to be a remote, and it has a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 connected by USB feeding studio monitors. An iPad is also a remote.

After the reboots, the Core on the Mini came back healthy: library intact (about 17,500 tracks), NAS mounted, all my other zones present and playing.

The MacBook Pro was another story. It would not complete the connection to the Core (stuck on “Initializing,” then “connection failed”). I cleared it by quitting Roon and renaming the laptop’s Library/Roon and Library/RAATServer folders so Roon would rebuild them clean. After that the laptop connected to the Mini’s Core normally as a remote and my full library loads.

Here is the core issue, and I think it’s the key detail: with the laptop connected, Settings, Audio shows only the Mac Mini’s local devices under the “This Mac” heading (C8, macmini, Mac mini Speakers, all CoreAudio). The MacBook Pro’s own local devices do not appear at all, no System Output, no MacBook Pro Speakers, and no Scarlett. So the Scarlett isn’t the thing that’s missing; the entire MacBook Pro is not registering as an audio output endpoint. It’s connected as a controller only.

To rule out the hardware: macOS on the laptop sees the Scarlett 2i2 perfectly in Audio MIDI Setup (2 in / 2 out, 24-bit, selectable as output). And Roon does not appear in System Settings, Privacy & Security, Microphone at all on the laptop, which I take to mean Roon has never requested audio-device access on this machine, consistent with it never initializing its local audio endpoint.

So the question for you: why is the MacBook Pro connecting as a remote but not presenting itself as an audio zone, so that its local USB output (the Scarlett) can be enabled? It looks like a RAAT endpoint registration problem on the laptop rather than anything to do with the Scarlett itself. Happy to pull and send whatever logs would help. Before I reinstall Roon on the laptop, I wanted your read, in case the logs from the current state are more useful to you than a fresh install would leave.

Thanks,
Tom

vadim · August 6, 2026, 1:20pm

Hello @Tom_Doherty

Thanks, this is a very clear writeup, and your read is correct. This is not the Scarlett. We have gone through your server logs and can confirm what you suspected.

Over the whole log window, from 1 August to 6 August, your Core has discovered RAAT endpoints at four addresses: itself, and three iOS devices. Your MacBook Pro, at 192.168.1.124, has never announced a RAAT endpoint at all, not once. It appears more than a thousand times in the logs as a control connection, so the two machines are talking perfectly well, and the only zone the laptop has ever produced was an AirPlay zone on 1 August, which is the same AirPlay2 target you can still see today.

So nothing is wrong on the Mac Mini side, and there is no point looking there.

The pattern is also informative. Your laptop reaches the Core by making an outbound connection, which is why control works. Its audio endpoint has to do the opposite: announce itself on the local network so the Core can find it. That is the part that is failing, and it points at one of two things on the laptop, either RAATServer not running, or its network announcements being blocked.

Please could you do the following, all on the MacBook.

First, with Roon open, run this in Terminal:

pgrep -fl RAATServer

If nothing comes back, we have our answer.

Second, send us a screenshot of System Settings, Privacy and Security, Local Network, showing the full list and the state of every toggle. We are asking even though you toggled it earlier, because this permission can be reset when an app is reinstalled and you reinstalled Roon on the laptop partway through. If it ended up off afterwards, control would keep working while the endpoint stayed invisible, which is exactly the split we see in the logs.

Third, check System Settings, Privacy and Security, Firewall. If it is on, please confirm whether Roon and RAATServer are allowed to receive incoming connections, or switch it off briefly as a test.

Fourth, please send us the logs from the laptop, from both of these folders. Please do not reinstall before you do, since that would erase the state we want to see.

~/Library/RAATServer/Logs/
~/Library/Roon/Logs/

Please use the directions found here and send over a set of logs to our File Uploader? Once logs have been uploaded, please let us know so that we can check the server for your files, thanks!

One thing to set aside: the absence of Roon from Privacy and Security, Microphone is not a clue. Roon only plays audio and never opens an input stream, so it has no reason to request microphone access even when everything is working normally. That list would be empty on a healthy machine too.

If it turns out RAATServer is not starting at all, Roon Bridge on the laptop will provide the endpoint function on its own and get you playing again. We would rather find the cause first, since running Roon Bridge alongside the full Roon app on one Mac brings its own complications, but it is there as a fallback.

Tom_Doherty · August 6, 2026, 8:10pm

Hi @Vadim, thank you, this is very helpful and it narrows things down. I worked through all three checks on the MacBook Pro, and here is what I found.

First, RAATServer is running. With Roon open, pgrep -fl RAATServer returns process 99768 at /Applications/Roon.app/Contents/MacOS/RAATServer. So it is not a case of RAATServer failing to start.

Second, Local Network permission for Roon is on. I confirmed the toggle is enabled in System Settings, Privacy and Security, Local Network.

Third, the Firewall is active, but it is not blocking Roon. In the Firewall options list, “Block all incoming connections” is off, and Roon, RAATServer, and RoonAppliance are all set to allow incoming connections. One thing I noticed that may be relevant to you: RAATServer appears twice in that list, and RoonAppliance also appears twice. I reinstalled Roon on this laptop partway through troubleshooting, so these may be duplicate registrations from that.

So all three of the environmental items you pointed to are clear on this machine, yet the laptop still never announces a RAAT endpoint, exactly as your logs showed.

I have not reinstalled since. I have uploaded the laptop logs from both ~/Library/RAATServer/Logs/ and ~/Library/Roon/Logs/ to your File Uploader (filename roon-laptop-logs-20260806.zip). Please let me know what the logs show, and whether the duplicate RAATServer/RoonAppliance registrations are worth cleaning up.

Thanks,
Tom