I’ve been using the Roon Arc on my iPhone for around a week now, and encounter quite literally endless issues with it, despite an update earlier today.
When using the app over Wifi, the issues are limited to slow loading tracks (even over a strong and stable connection), with the odd crash.
But when out and about using 5G or 4G, this is where the real fun and games start.
Tracks just won’t play, even with 5 bars of signal strength and I’m able to stream a 4K clip on YouTube wit no issues. The app crashes randomly, this has happened more often since todays update. If you skip more than a track or two ahead at a time, the spinning wheel kicks in and you need to quit the app to get it going again.
When using Roon Arc with CarPlay (I know it’s not officially supported yet) I can manage one or two songs before the app becomes either unresponsive or quits.
I love Roon, I’m new to it - but I love it. Most of the past week has been spent ripping CD’s and building a Roon Core setup around an old MacBook Pro. At home everything works great.
It’s just a shame the Roon Arc App feels like it’s barely been tested, and it’s not in beta.
Anyone else experiencing the same thing?
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Jim_F
(Remember - It's easier to Keep a Customer than to get a New One)
2
Have you tried deleting the Roon ARC app from your phone and doing a reinstall? Sometimes that will cure lots of issues.
It’s not as I couldn’t get past the connectivity issues when connected via Ethernet, but when connecting via Wifi it was fine. The Mac I’m using for the Roon Core is right next to the router and I get a solid 50/10 when I do a Speedtest.
I wonder what you are playing, local stored music or streaming?
My ARC on IOS i rock solid unless i’m in the Derbyshire hillls that have poor signal.
I’m using the Tailscale VPN but usually i’ll be using ARC to play Tidal content so it’s direct once playing.
My core is on an underpowered NAS but it’s fast enough, I was never impressed using a MAC as core, i had no end of trouble streaming live radio and it all disappeared once i put the core on my NAS.
I have to say it’s pretty damned stable for me on iOS. Had one previous build that crashed a bit but not had any others. Skipping if it’s transcoding to opus on cellular I can see might cause it to have a bit of a fit. I don’t tend to skip so never experienced if this is the case. Plays well over Wi-Fi at the office and cellular on my journey in. But I do use the balanced settings for cellular as reception drops very quickly and I don’t get the guaranteed bandwidth. The bars on the phone are no judge of data bandwidth it’s purely the rf strength nothing more I have been in station with full bars and still no data. My journey in goes via one and arc works but can’t get anything to work. Lol
The very first thing I’d do is connect your core via ethernet (even if only very temporarily) to see if this solves your issue. I suspect it might.
FWIW I have never had a single issue with ARC on iOS and it works seamlessly, whether I’m using locally downloaded tracks, streaming tracks from my Nucleus at home, or streaming Qobuz tracks to it. And this is all while moving from a home wifi network to a 4G network as I drive away from the house and with a VPN turning on.
OP, this ^^ is right. Networking is the bane of Roon installs.
Rules of the road for those who have any issues (all of these may be broken, but if you have issues, best to start by following all of them and only then selectively break and see if they cause issues):
Core / Rock wired to core/central switch or router
Library on storage that’s local (internal or USB to core)
Core that’s to spec
DNS set to 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8
Endpoints wired if they experience dropouts
Note these are my rules, not Roon’s, but when I’m giving folks advice it’s worked pretty well too appears to back to these first.
In a world of ARC, obviously #5 isn’t important, but once you are outside your own network, the additional complexity is your wireless carrier & ISPs routing, and your upload speed / throttling. But fwiw it appears that Arc has, in a few cases, elicited some networking issues that have not been apparent within a user’s four walls.
They are not allowed to do so as Roon dont allow 3rd parties to distribute their code legally, Its really not hard to achieve yourself. You can get the NuC all assembled from lots of places if you buy it 2nd hand. Its then just a case of downloading ROCK and putting it on a USB as abootable media, start up nuc go in bios and set a few things and then follow the simple instal instructions from the roon KB.