I am attempting to migrate from my iMac running OS 10.15.3 to the Nucleus with a 2TB SSD installed. I transferred my music files to an external Western Digital Drive and then to the Nucleus over my LAN. I then transferred the Roon Backup (the final forced backup) from my iMac Core to the Nucleus. I then disconnected the iMac Core and connect the Nucleus core.
But now when I open Roon to view my music (about a 1000 albums taking up about 350GB) I see that many of the cover arts are missing, and many have been replaced with the wrong cover art. As well there are no playlists and it seems that some of the albums are simply missing. I am not sure what to do. Should I delete everything from the Nucleus and try again. I need some solid advice.
Something like the Nucleus Migration Guide?
I have been through that any number of times and find the instructions somewhat incomprehensible, especially the part about moving the Roon Data Base to the Nucleus. I suspect this is the root of my problem.
Then you might have to elaborate a bit about what you don’t understand / makes you trouble to follow from the guide.
Did you restore the backup to the Nucleus? you cant just copy it over.
This is where I made a mistake initially, I did just copy it. So I am thinking of doing a complete reinstall. To this end I have reset the Roon Database and Settings on nucleus as a first step. Now do I reformat the Internal Music Storage to get rid of the current music files (I have a complete copy on my iMac to reinstall)?
no need to reformat…just go to settings backup and restore from there.
https://kb.roonlabs.com/Backup
You will probably need to add the new location under storage on the nucleus and remove the old Mac location for the library location
I am not that familiar with these roon related computer processes so bear with me.
I have already reset the nucleus Roon Database and Settings. So you are saying I do not need to get rid of the music files on the Nucleus but to restore the backup to nucleus. Now if I try to connect to my nucleus I am asked to Login to nucleus. On the bottom of that page there is a Restore a Backup button. When I press it a page comes up “Choose folder that contains your backup” . But the folder is empty. At this point do I go back and make the Core my iMac and recover the final backup from the iMAC making it available to nucleus?
You need to backup on your original core and do it to a location that you can access/connect to the nucleus like a hard disk or maybe dropbox location or NAS and restore from there.
OK I backed up my original final backup of my iMac core to a hard drive. How to I transfer the backup to the nucleus? I assume I must use the Web Administration Interface to do this. But I am having trouble here on the details of how this is done. When I get tot he “Restore a Backup” link it takes me to “Choose a folder that contains your backup” When I hit “Add a Network Share” I must enter the location of the backup under “Network Share Location” and hit Add a Network Share. I do that and get “There was an unexpected error” in bright red. Now what?
If it’s a usb backup hard disk the. Plug that into the nucleus USB port and browse to it in the restore area
Sorry it’s 3am here so leave you with @support
Hi @John_Bent,
Welcome to the community. I’ve been looking over this thread and here is how I believe you should proceed:
- Let’s set the old database aside since it was improperly migrated:
- Stop RoonServer from running in Nucleus’s WebUI
- Navigate to your Roon Nucleus Database Location
- Find the folder that says “RoonServer”
- Rename the “RoonServer” folder to “RoonServer_old”
- Restart the RoonServer in the WebUI to generate a new Database
-
Leave the music files on the Internal Storage
-
Copy the iMac backup on a USB drive
-
Connect this USB drive to the Nucleus
-
Connect a Roon Remote/Client to the Nucleus
-
On the sign-in page, choose restore from backup and point the Nucleus to the USB drive backup
-
After the restore is complete, go to
Roon Settings -> Storage -
Important: If your previous watched storage location of the iMac is still visible on the Nucleus, disable this folder (3-dot drop-down -> Disable).
-
All your media should now start importing and being matched up to existing database entries. Do note that the import process can take a while, and you might see slower performance from the Nucleus while importing is going on, this is expected behavior until the full import is completed.
Finally some instructions I may be able to follow. Thanks so much Noris – I will start going through your instructions and get back to you if I need further elaboration on any point. Thanks again for reaching out to me.
I found the folder called Roon in my iMac library which was the only folder relating to Roon so I assumed it was the RoonServer file and renamed it “RoonServer_old”. I restarted the RoonServer in the WebUI by disconnecting and reconnecting my Roon on my iMac. I copied the iMac backup to the connected USB drive . Now step 4 says to connect the USB drive to the Nucleus. How do I do this? I see them both in Finder but I cannot figure how to connect them.
Hi @John_Bent,
This is the wrong folder, you should be accessing the Nucleus /Data/ path. You can use Connect to Server and type in the Nucleus database location from the guide:
Nucleus Core
- Using a Windows machine, open File Explorer and navigate to
\\NUCLEUS\Data. You should then see theRoonServerfolder.- Using a Mac, open Finder and navigate to
smb://NUCLEUS/Data. You should then see theRoonServerfolder.Be sure to replace NUCLEUS with NUCLEUSPLUS if you have a Nucleus+
Sorry for my mistake. I created the proper RoonServer_old . I restarted the Roon Server at the end of step 1 by reconnecting to the Nucleus, making it my core. Assuming this is ok how do I copy the iMAC backup to the USB drive. Where is the iMAC backup located?
OK I have a iMAC on my USB drive. When you say in 4 Connect the USB drive to the Nucleus do you mean physically connect it to Nucleus by the USB connector? If so is it ok to have other stuff on the USB drive? How do you control what goes on to Nucleus? Is this where the Roon Remote/Client comes in?
Just for your information the Nucleus has been reset to factory settings re Roon Database & Settings from the WAI. I hope this does not screw anything up.
I meant “iMAC backup” in the first sentence above.
Hi @John_Bent,
This is good.
Yes, you should unplug the USB drive from your iMac and connect it physically to your Nucleus.
Yes, shouldn’t be an issue.
You specify the backup location in the Roon app. Once you point the Nucleus to the backup folder on the USB drive, you simply select the backup and restore the database using Roon’s Backup manager.
The Nucleus does not have an interface itself, so it must be controlled by another PC or a Roon Remote (iOS/Android).
If your iMac is still in “Core Mode”, you can connect to the Nucleus by going to `Roon Settings → General → Disconnect. Then on the “Choose your Core” screen, select the Nucleus and perform the rest of the steps. This is what I mean when I say connect a Roon Remote/Client to the Nucleus.
Yes, this is fine since you are going to be restoring the backup. All of the iMac database info is saved in the backup and will overwrite the previous Nucleus database info.
So I figured a few things out and hope I did not screw anything up in the process. So as my iMac core looked fine I decided to transfer the backup for iMac to a thumb drive instead of using my large WD drive (which does have a backup on it but I would prefer not to use it). So I did a forced backup on the iMac to the thumb drive. But something went adrift and I had to terminate the transfer. When I went to do it again I had to sign into my Roon iMac core and when I did it immediately went into resorting all my albums. When it finished it had a lot of gaps like the Nucleus currently looks like. So I went into settings and choose a backup from there and hit restore. It went through the restore process and when I again launched Roon Web Browser it came up with “There was an issue loading your database” but don’t worry. Actually I am very worried. Can you sort this out for me?