Multiple problems accessing Roon Core with additional router

Roon Core Machine

Operating System: Linux distribution Open Media Vault
Model: Intel NUC11TNHi5
CPU: Intel Core i5-1135G7
RAM: 8GB
SSD: 512GB
Connection to LAN: Ethernet

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Modem/gateway router: Huawei DN8245X6-10
Base router for LAN: NETGEAR Nighthawk R700
VPNs, proxy servers, or enterprise-grade security: No

Connected Audio Devices

BlueSound Node 2i, connected to the LAN via Ethernet.
Various devices attached to a Windows 11 Roon Remote that is connected to the LAN via Ethernet.

Number of Tracks in Library

3,151

Description of Issue

I’ve identified three problems with connecting to my Roon Core. Before I describe the three problems, let me explain the network change after which all three problems started to occur.

Network Change

The old modem/gateway router supplied by my ISP broke down, so they sent me a new one, different model. I got everything on the LAN working the new router. That includes all the Roon features, listed below, that are no longer working.

However, the new gateway router’s wi-fi coverage was inadequate. I could not simply substitute a router of my own, as the gateway router provides the phone line as well as Internet. The solution was to disable the gateway router’s wi-fi and connect the gateway router via ethernet to a powerful additional router I already had to hand. The additional router has its own range of internal IP addresses and has become the base router for the LAN. All other Ethernet devices are now connected to the base router instead of the gateway router. All wi-fi devices are now connected to the base router’s wi-fi instead of the gateway router’s now disabled. With the addition of the new LAN base router, the following Roon problems started to occur.

Specific Problems

  1. The Roon Core software version has started to lag behind my Windows Roon Remote software version. The following error message is shown: There was an error checking for an update:

  2. Searching for Roon OS Core now hangs:

  3. Roon ARC can no longer connect to Roon Core via mobile broadband:


    Port forwarding is reported as working, as I have UPnP enabled on both the gateway router and the LAN base router:

Other Features Still Working

Other Roon features appear to still be working fine. Roon Remotes connected to the LAN, via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, can still play music. Streamed albums can still be added to my library.

Nice description, thank you :slight_smile:

Did you ensure that you also disabled DHCP on the gateway router? Only one router may hand out LAN IP addresses by DHCP, else you get all kinds of address collisions and network problems.

The Gateway router may have a “bridge mode” (or similar) which may do this automatically and generally ensure that all it does is work as an internet gateway.

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That’s a great question @Suedkiez, but there are a few possible approaches depending on how the second router is configured to the gateway. I have an ISP gateway that performs DHCP, but my second router network for my LAN (based on its improved WiFi similar to the OP’s needs) also performs DHCP. The difference is that my second router has been created as a different subnet (192.168.2.nnn vs. my ISP gateway being 192.168.1.nnn), and my WiFi subnet DHCP has been restricted to that subnet only.

If the OP’s WiFi router/network is associated to the same subnet as their ISP gateway, then absolutely agree that only one DHCP server can be assigned to that subnet/network.

I’d start by making sure that your WiFi router is set to bridge mode. That way, all the assignment of LAN IP addresses, DHCP, and all that are done by the ISP router.

Hello Suedkiez and Robert_F. Thanks for the suggestions and comments. I should have heeded Robert_F’s comment rather than have a go at disabling DHCP on the gateway router. Specifically I disabled “Enable Primary DHCP Server” (shown enabled in the following screenshot):

Unfortunately, that not only denied internet access to the additional router’s LAN, it also rendered the gateway router’s web interface inaccessible to a laptop I wired directly to the gateway router. So, in order to back out my change, I had to reset the the gateway router with a steel skewer and manually reimplement a few required settings, such as disabling wi-fi again. (The cheap ISP-supplied router seems not to support saving configurations to a file. Otherwise settings restoration would have been a little simpler. Fortunately I had taken screenshots of my settings.)

Everything seems to be back to where we started, including the Roon Core connection problems. As the above screenshot shows, the gateway router has the IP address range 192.168.1.n. As the following screenshot shows, the base LAN router has the IP address range 10.0.0.n:

I would appreciate any other suggestions.

And no, the gateway router does not have a bridging setting.

Thanks, Fernando_Pereira. Bridge mode on the additional router sounds promising. I’ve been working on it and will report back when done.

Sure, but after coming of with such a configuration on purpose one would know where to look if something failed :slight_smile:

Sorry if I caused you trouble! I did mean that there needs to be one DHCP server on the network and every device needs an IP.

Probably it’s best to start with listing out the IP addresses of all your devices. It some are on the 192.168.1 network and others are on the 10.0.0 network, then Roon won’t work as its protocols don’t traverse networks. All Roon devices must be on the same network and subnet

By far the easiest way. A guide:

But please note:

If that’s a problem, you would have to try a more difficult workaround.

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Hi @Simon_O_Rorke,

Did you get it working or do you need additional help?

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. It’s been night here in New Zealand, so I’ve just got up. So first let me explain current status at this end. The Netgear R7000 router does have bridge mode. But I was not able to find a good approach to implementing it. At one stage I had to resort to resetting the Netgear router! Fortunately, I had a backup to restore after that. By the time I got everything back to where it was when I started this thread it was getting late. I decided to stop for the night while I had a functioning network, though the Roon problems of course remained.

I’ve got plenty of time to fix this during the day today Monday NZ time (Sunday evening/night for some of you).

Thanks for the clarification. The suggestions and work to get all devices on the same network and subnet must be heading in the right direction then. The gateway router is on the 192.168.1 network. All all other devices are on the 10.0.0 network. As the gateway router cannot be moved, mu task is to move all other devices to the 192.168.1 network.

Axel_Lesch, thanks for the recommendation that Access Point mode (AP mode) will be the easiest approach. I had wondered what the differences between Bridge mode and AP mode were. Based on the documentation you link to and other articles I’ve just read, I can see that AP modes should be the way to go: it will be fine to have all ethernet connections direct to the Huawei gateway router, with the NetGear router providing the wi-fi only. On that basis, I don’t anticipate needing any any of the features that, as you helpfully point out, are disabled in AP mode.

So I shall have a go at implementing AP mode and report back.

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I got the Netgear router working in AP mode. It was easy, as Axel_Lesch predicted. Problems 1 and 3 are fixed:

  • The Roon Core software got updated to the latest version straight away.
  • Roon ARC started working with mobile broadband (after I rechecked Roon ARC access in a Roon Remote).

Searching for Roon OS devices still hangs (Problem 2). But I don’t care about that. So I’m happy to declare the overall problem fixed. Thanks again everyone for your help!

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Looks like you are done, congrats and enjoy!

I overlooked the “Searching for Roon OS devices” in your OP, sorry, it would have been possible to clarify this right away. This option is just for accessing the web admin interface (via http) of a Nucleus, ROCK install on a NUC, and some other (3rd-party) devices that use Roon OS for the Core. As you don’t have such a device, this can’t work.

There has been quite some feedback that the wording of this is not quite clear to anyone who isn’t fluent in Roon lingo, or that the clickable link should not be displayed at all if there is no Roon OS device on the network to start with:

Ah yes of course! Even though I know the difference between Roon OS and Roon Core, I still did not get it!

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