I’ve been carrying my fanless Roon core between two locations so that my Roon library and recommendations are always in sync. But I expect to be bopping between three locations in the next several years, and carrying the same core all around, especially when it involves flying, is not so much fun. I guess I could use my laptop and an external disk for this, but I’m not so happy with running RoonServer on the same laptop that I’m using for everything else, especially since often the laptop is on my lap, not wired.
What I really would love is a simple, automated way to keep multiple cores in sync. I can deal with keeping music storage synchronized (thanks to Syncthing) but the Roon database is a different story.
Note that I’m OK with having three Roon subscriptions for the three sites, the issue is that I’d like to see the same Roon world in all three.
Because the roon database is not portable between different Roon Cores. Each has a different identity, and restoring a backup from one to another removes all the local information such as endpoints.
I understand. I was not thinking restoring a backup, i was thinking synchronizing the same roon installation across multiple hosts (just an idea, it may not work).
As far as I can see, the Roon database is not portable between different machines. It might be possible to fake it, but life is too short to waste on figuring it out,
Yes, if I want to sync my database with the NUC I use at my holiday home, currently I restore from the latest backup on my home core.
After doing this my NUC spends time re-analysing my whole library plus the name of my NUC core is now the same as the name of my home core, which I don’t want and then have to change.
The process is just a bit cumbersome and takes time that I could better use elsewhere.
My preferate backup method is to backup the entire installation folder. Then when i completely reinstall the core machine (windows server if that matters) for unrelated to this topic reasons, i just override a fresh roon installation with the backup (so I’m not using the internal roon backup functionality at all). The only limitation is that they need (or not, never tried) to be te same version. Never had a problem, other than unregistering the old (same) server. I suppose it may be the same if instead of reinstalling on a new core you keep the files in sync, but i agree with you it may not worth trying. It may also be that “any chance”
Yes, I could do that, but it would definitely be a pain in terms of time and potential for mistakes to go through those contortions as often as I exchange locations.
With the COVID-induced expansion of remote work, Roon portability has become a lot more desirable. But unless there’s support for easy sync across multiple cores, I suspect I’ll be carting my trusty ZBOX CI662 nano Roon server around the country for a while.
This sounds like a Feature Suggestion - so I’ve moved this thread into the Feature Suggestions category of the forum. Some form of “Syncing Cores” has already been asked for on at least two occasions there (search for “sync cores” in the category), so let me know if you want me to merge this thread with one of the existing threads.
And now that Voting has been turned on, don’t forget to Vote for your request…
Not trying anything here, but i really don’t see your pain. All you have to do is to buy two more cores, install roon on each one, and setup Syncthing between the 3 of them. And eventually do not forget to stop the server (roon server application, not the machine) when you leave home. If it works, that’s it. All that backup/reinstall stuff i talked about was just to make my point of why i (theoretically) believe that it may work, you don’t have to do that.
Thanks, my check for earlier threads wasn’t so careful when I first posted, didn’t find them, my bad. It would make sense to merge this one with the others.
I get your point, I should try the experiment, I already have the hardware for other reasons. OTOH, I don’t know how Roon implements their license authorization, but if I were implementing such a system, it would not allow cloning, for reasons best left to the imagination of the sneaky.
I don’t see, license wise, the difference between having 3 cores or the same core 3 times as long as they are all under the same account and they are running only one at the time…
For Tidal this should probably be OK, Qobuz too. At least that is the theory. I have several cores that Tidal and Qobuz seem to work fine with. Of course audio devices will ‘typically’ be different from one home to another but do keep local backups actives for all locations.
Concurrent access to the streaming servers might not work well with one causing the other to stop playing, but one of one or the other should be fine.
I have two cores, one at home, one at office, no core for vacation, streaming only, tagging and backup at two sites double the maintenance cost, time and afford.
If Roon able to link with cloud storage, I will pay the cloud storage and let the provider do the active backup for me, and I keep one offline copy is fine.
You are relying on Tidal or Qobuz keeping enough information about your Roon actions to at least know which albums & tracks are in each library. But the play history of each core is not going to be shared that way, each core will have a different history and different recommendations for that reason. That would not work for me.
