Is the NUC hard-wired to the network. If not, that could be most of your problems.
Apologies for the rant yesterday, I was frustrated after spending an hour diagnosing my latest problem with Roon and came here and saw that review complaining about similar problems I’ve seen and then seeing the OP being attacked. Anyway…
Here’s the excerpt from the log for the latest crashing problem that I had with Roon:
SCREEN0 Name: 69943472 (primary)SCREEN0 Bounds: 0,0 2560x1440
Exception Source: mscorlib
Exception Type: System.IO.IOException
Exception Target Site: FileStream.WriteInternal
Exception Message: Invalid handle to path “/Applications/Roon.app/Contents/Resources/[Unknown]”
Exception Data: none–[ Stack Trace ]------------
System.IO.FileStream.WriteInternal(Byte[] src, Int32 offset, Int32 count)
mscorlib.dll, IL 119, N 618
System.IO.FileStream.Write(Byte[] array, Int32 offset, Int32 count)
mscorlib.dll, IL 144, N 274
System.IO.StreamWriter.Flush(Boolean flushStream, Boolean flushEncoder)
mscorlib.dll, IL 128, N 286
Any developer could look at that and see that Roon is creating an invalid path and trying to write to it. Without even seeing the code, I know at least 3 bugs exist here: 1) Roon allows itself to construct an invalid path to a file, 2) it tries to open that file for writing and the file handle is not checked to see if it’s valid or not and 3) it attempts to write to the file anyway, which causes an exception to be thrown by .NET (egads!) which is never caught (WTF?!) so Roon’s server crashes.
This has NOTHING to do with my network, this is because of poorly-written and poorly-tested software by Roon. The first 2 bugs are sloppy programming skills, but it’s inexcusable that an exception never gets caught and is allowed to terminate the server. That’s plain and simple poor coding practice.
How long has this code been in the codebase? How much other sloppy code exists in Roon? How many people ran into the same problem I had, were told by Roon that their network is the problem, gave up frustrated and Roon lost a potential customer?
Roon is a struggling business not because of network hardware manufacturers, it’s because their product is buggy and they can’t seem to recognize that, so they won’t improve it. And all the audiophiles that defend them here are not helping them, they’re hurting them. Just the few weeks I’ve spent in Roon’s forums trying to diagnose my problems with it, I’ve seen countless claims by Roon that the problem is the user’s network and worse, they blame firewalls and antivirus software, and put the blame and onus on the user to figure out their problem. That’s not a path to success for Roon.
I solved it simply by renaming my Roon folders and starting over. It no longer crashes for me but if the previous few weeks are any indication, I’m sure I will have more 5-second music dropouts, lost connections to the Core server, more required restarts of Roon Core, etc. and I will spend more hours trying to figure out the problem.
My network? There are 5 people in my house, for years we’ve been able to stream Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Prime and YouTube all in 4K video simultaneously without any network problems. I’ve played music throughout my house for almost 10 years on AirPlay and/or Chromecast without problems. But a few weeks ago, I installed Roon and started using it and suddenly my network isn’t capable of playing music reliably to one pair of speakers with a gigabit wired connection for the Core and for the DAC. It doesn’t pass the smell test.
Look through your own Roon logs, it might look like gibberish to you, but it looks to me like it’s full of “debug-print” style of software development. This is a brute-force/lazy way of debugging, the developer just throws statement after statement in to trace the bug when we send them logs to view. It’s a sign that they don’t know their code very well and they don’t test it internally. The bug I’ve shown above should never have gotten through testing.
6 Likes
Or better yet, just give the Core a Web UI, and drop the individual apps for the various platforms. Running .NET on Apple operating systems is like a dancing bear; it’s not that it dances well, you just marvel that it dances at all.
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Another Roon problem… nothing is playing on any zone. I launch Roon on my iPad, it connects to my iMac (the Core server), I select the Cambridge Audio DacMagicPlus connected via USB to the iMac, headphones plugged into the DAC, and it says “Failed to initialize the audio device”. So I check the log:
05/22 11:29:36 Trace: [Cambridge Audio DAC] [Inactive] [PLAYING @ 0:00] La Femme d’Argent - Air / Jean-Benoît Dunckel / Eric Regert
05/22 11:29:36 Trace: [Cambridge Audio USB 2.0 Audio Out] [raatclient] GOT [10] {“message”:“RAAT__OUTPUT_PLUGIN_STATUS_DEVICE_INIT_FAILED”,“status”:“DeviceInitFailed”}
05/22 11:29:36 Trace: [Cambridge Audio DAC] [zoneplayer/raat] device init failed. stopping stream
05/22 11:29:36 Info: [audio/env] [zoneplayer -> stream] All streams were disposed
05/22 11:29:36 Debug: [smc] [zoneplayer:1] Removing ordinal 11
05/22 11:29:36 Info: sleep 0ms after flush
05/22 11:29:36 Debug: [smc] [zoneplayer:1] Waiting for ordinal 11 (> 10)
05/22 11:29:36 Warn: Track Stopped Due to DeviceInitFailed
05/22 11:29:36 Info: [audio/env] [zoneplayer -> stream -> endpoint] All streams were disposed
05/22 11:29:36 Debug: [easyhttp] [1026] POST to https://www.qobuz.com/api.json/0.2/track/reportStreamingEnd?
05/22 11:29:36 Info: [zone Cambridge Audio DAC] OnPlayFeedback StoppedLostEndpoint
05/22 11:29:36 Trace: [zone Cambridge Audio DAC] Suspend
05/22 11:29:36 Info: [zone Cambridge Audio DAC] OnPlayFeedback Stopped
05/22 11:29:36 Trace: [Cambridge Audio DAC] [Inactive] [STOPPED @ 0:00] La Femme d’Argent - Air / Jean-Benoît Dunckel / Eric Regert
05/22 11:29:36 Info: Alert: Transport: playback_error_endpoint_device_init_failed
05/22 11:29:36 Info: Alert: Transport: playback_error_endpoint_device_init_failed
(See all that Info:, Debug: and Trace: logging? That’s lazy debug-print style logging, there’s a ton of it and it’s on by default in Roon because so many people have so many problems)
How is this a network problem?
I unplugged the USB cable from the iMac and plugged it back in and the iPad client says it’s playing now, but no music can be heard even though the iPad client’s track timeline is ticking right along. I go to the iMac and the Roon app there doesn’t say it’s playing yet the iPad client says it still is playing the track. I hit Play on the iMac Roon app and it plays and I can hear music. Is this a network problem? Or is it buggy Roon software?
This is my experience with Roon all the time. It’s very hit-and-miss, the server and client are often out of sync and with a lot of unresponsiveness in the client and requires a lot of Roon Core restarts. I am sure I’m not the only one who experiences these things, others do, they just give up and leave so everyone thinks the problems are solved.
This is unrelated (I think) but looking at the log before the excerpt above, the Roon server spends a lot of time trying to connect to 2 of my endpoints, a Beosound Core and a Googlecast Group even though no zones are playing music, and it fails over and over and over:
05/22 11:29:30 Error: [cast/client] [BeoSound-Core-2bb07c9129435d31a2fa0440dcad9f8a._googlecast._tcp.local] Unable to authenticate TLS connection
05/22 11:29:30 Error: [cast/client] [Google-Cast-Group-8C033EAF212C46DB9687AEDBD7A4EA99._googlecast._tcp.local] Unable to authenticate TLS connection
I have 13 endpoints, why is it trying to connect to those 2 in the first place (and only those 2) and why is it failing?
3 Likes
Which endpoints do you have? Can you list them?
Screenshot Settings>Audio would provide a pictorial list.
The list is too big for a single screenshot so here’s 2 that show the full list:
I used to have AirPlay devices but since restarting the Roon config, I didn’t enable them yet.
1 Like
I see a lot of this kind of thing as well, with 8 different Google Cast endpoints. Roon Core seems obsessively interested in pinging these devices constantly.
Agreed that their software is buggy.
Not sure if they are struggling since a lot of hardware manufacturers have Roon Ready devices.
You really should report this and any other Roon problems to @support in the Support section.
They will have the answers, if you want them.
On another note -
100% agree. Their attention to detail and customer care is second to none. Had some first hand experience and they stayed on top of the game with many callbacks until my issue was fixed.
Not blaming sh&tty network setup or „its not our problem“-attitude you find elsewhere. But then to be fair you cant compare Apple to a small 30 man outlet
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True, but Apple was once smaller than 30 people and almost bankrupt in 1995 and today is the most successful and most valuable company that has ever existed because they worked hard to make happy customers. Roon seems to be focused on the OEMs and assumes customers will suffer with their software. I think that’s backwards thinking.
Roon Ready licensing is worthless if Roon’s software is not popular. Roon’s software must improve for the company to succeed and they have to do it before Airplay and Chromecast focus on hi-res audio. Imagine being able to use Tidal, Qobuz, Apple Music, Spotify, etc apps natively instead of Roon Core and Roon apps. Roon Labs is unlikely to be able to compete with all those companies.
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I agree. The problem is not in Roon.
@Troy_Hakala : I’m happy to see someone sharing my point of view.
Once again, I am not saying Roon is a awful application. I’m just saying there is lot of bugs.
And for those tell me it’s my network the issue. Even it would be the case, do you think it’s normal to have an application that crash without any message ?
Or as I said the music just stops and one again without any error message ?
To answer to someone saying, I’m an IT guy and I have some tricky things in my network. For information I’m using the router provided my ISP. So it can’t be more simple.
You’ll be happy to hear Roon is hiring devs right now. So if people you know are looking for a job…
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Do you really believe what you are saying? Your are American and I’m French. I am supposed to be the romantic one.
You think Apple will let Airplay 3 or 4 playing high res content coming from Qobuz or Tidal??? On Apple HomePod for instance? Come on, I have two HomePods at home, could not be more Apple centric, voice only command Apple Music…and so far SQ is more or less good MP3 if not wrong.
And I think you miss the point of Roon that is to gather all your digital music in one app!!!
Please let me know if one of the giants you are talking about are doing that in the next 5 years…
Nobody can see that far. So for now and for me it is the best solution.
And by the way, nice set up with all your rooms and devices. Is there another software able to gather all of them in one place without changing app?
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That in no way implies an expanding business; there could be a myriad of reasons for this, such as departures or current staff unable to meet the technological demands to drive the product further. 
Sorry - couldn’t resist & I’m not even contributing to this thread.
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I personally much prefer seeing them actively posting, not discouraged to point out the potential imperfections. The value they bring to the forum I find much higher compared to some regulars who just as aggresively keep shouting back nonsense like “its all your fault by not having a super-polished network / not understanding the grandiose vision of Roon’s / expecting too much for 699USD / …” for years.
Count me in the club of “stubborn complainers” I guess?
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Everybody is moving into this spce, so I would certainly not be as sure as you are to exclude it. Apple has blocked FLAC for decades. Now they‘ve silently opened it up. In preparation for something coming? Who knows.
I‘ve got 3 Homepods standing here. Purely to receive Home Automation commands etc. not to stream music. Apple knows that many of their customers have highend Audio in their possession. Jobs owned a Linn LP12.
Only been around a few weeks, but I can name those hardcore fanboy-shouters already 
But there are also strong supporters that recognize the imperfactions of Roon and are making valuable contributions / suggestions.
But some can just be savely ignored as their contribution to advance matters equals zilch.
All the characters seem to be chiming in on this thread, so I can’t help myself 
Just checking - is your NUC hardwired (ethernet cable) to your main modem/router?
This is almost essential.
Your endpoints can all be wireless but your Roon Core really needs to be hard wired for the best experience.
I setup Roon for my old man (dad) on the other side of the country, playing to 9 different endpoints (combination wireless and hard wired) and I haven’t had a Roon related technical support phone call from him in years…
ISP provided routers don’t always make for good switches, I would suggest getting an 8 port unmanaged switch and connecting it to your router and then all wired devices to the switch.
2 Likes