[Moderated]
You [Roon] really need to start moving away from having your customers at close to IT support level people, and focus on making the product stable upon update, and as easy to use as a mac. Unix not needed.
I am happy I didn’t take the Life Subscription. When the product is working it is great. But every single time you update, pretty well, my server crashes and I need to boot it up again.
Hi @Jeffrey_Pinhey,
Your post was flagged off topic, on review I could see it was aimed at Roon, so I’ve moved it from the Roon Software Discussion topic, to Feedback, where Roon’s product management team will see it.
This is a great post, if you look at what M$ are doing they are going to go back to basics on Windows 11, stop the AI slop, work on functionality, resource usage etc.
This is exactly what Roon need to do, spend the next updates (say 9 months) on stability, resource usage, reliability and not live music etc. (IMO) - If i look across the forums there is a growing volume of frustration / people leaving the product due to it just not working.
I commented on another thread - Roon shouldnt expect people to do things with their database……*unless in extraordinary circumstance) - its like Windows saying hey on a daily basis we want you to do something with your pagefile.sys - what is that!!!
In good news the announcement at the top of the page seems to suggest the wind is blowing in that direction.
Considering at the last data Roon had over 300,000 subscriptions , the number who take their bat home is trivial.
Study the forum and you will see the majority of unhappiness comes from under-spec’ed PC’s or inadequate networks and things like Qobuz connections outside of Roons immediate control
Roon is not forgiving on wi fi in some cases
I have used Roon daily for coming up to 10 yrs with absolutely no technical issues , the KISS principal works.
Features is another subject but not what you are describing.
Has it occurred to people that the “user support helpers” actually derive satisfaction from doing it
You really have no idea this is true. What this feels like is diminishing other users’ frustrations.
Perhaps more importantly, there are many other fora where users complain of Roon’s instability or the their feeling that substantial IT knowledge is necessary to keep Roon working. That could very easily be hurting Roon’s ability to grow its user base.
Many of those 300K users may not be using Roon actively (i.e. lifetime subs that gave up using it) and that number was, IIRC, based on and projected from an off hand comment made years ago that was never really verified (could be wrong on that point…that is what I recall).
There are also quite a few fora posts where users say they are using Roon, not going to leave it given their investment of both funds and time into building out their Roon system, but nonetheless they do not recommend it to others, or even actively dissuade others from getting involved with Roon.
I suggest that the better answer over diminishing users’ frustrations is to effectively acknowledge that if one adopts Roon, it is high reward, but due to the nature of the platform being compatible over many different OS’s and devices and its very high functionality, it is also very complex and there is a higher than “average” risk that significant IT skills may be needed to maintain functionality - or at least that significant effort will be involved in that.
It’s not a great marketing message, I get it. But I think it is more honest than the various implications that Roon is always or even mostly plug and play. No user really knows what the various percentages are from very happy users to those who have problems but accept them to those who have abandoned it due to issues.
What I have been happy to see is, while the marketing hasn’t changed, the development priorities do seem to have begun to acknowledge some of these issues - scheduling library maintenance and the like. It would be great if Roon would also implement a timed restart or even a manual one through the remotes. Finally, I would love to see Roon revamp their error messaging system to be more verbose and accurate to allow for better troubleshooting, and even the ability to view logs and messaging through the remote interfaces. Then I might be able to know why music pauses frequently and things like that.
Roon is highly sophisticated and highly functional, and it must be a major challenge to keep it running and updated with OS updates etc., much less implement new features and the like.
Very well formulated. Always the same ‘it works for me, so don’t complain.’
They have just done this for about a year*. Then other people complain that there are no new features.
* And it continues, with a drive to improve memory management having just started to make it into releases
But why has my experience been just that . Yes I have IT skills , I am a retire developer but I have not needed to use them.
I started on a W10 desktop with a RPi and RoPieee , plugged it all together and go
Later I had built (not by me) a NUC, all I did was install ROCK , as per detailed instructions, plugged in and go . Even switching the db between machines went smoothly “as expected”
What have I done to deserve a trouble free Roon , I guess I am just lucky .
KISS is definitely the answer. ROCK designed for the job, RoPieee designed for the job and latterly Roon Ready streamer Dac Amp purchesed for the job.
I don’t think either of us can extrapolate some “general Roon experience” from our own experiences alone. I just see a lot of folks posting very similar patterns to what I have experienced.
I think you are definitely right that KISS makes it most likely for Roon to be max reliable. But to me that means not capitalizing on features that Roon is supposed to support.
And as a hobby, I personally find it difficult to KISS with Roon. There are too many fun things I have done, notwithstanding they might make Roon crawl.
All of that said, I have found it has improved lately and I am seeing less kinds of glitches than in the past. I am hopeful we don’t get introduced new glitches with the upcoming release.
To me, the biggest things to keep Roon as functional as possible are (1) everything wired; (2) very powerful Roon server on Linux, lots of RAM and fast cores, not just a lot of cores, and (3) separate endpoint from the server. Glitches still happen but less severe or sustained.
Admittedly, I’m a lifetime subscriber of Roon and have a technical background. I like Linux, NUCs, and Single-Board toys. Linux is great for my servers (website hobby, runs AlmaLinux and Debian). My NUC is great for the occasional functional need. A Raspberry Pi is also in my toy rack.
I think it would be cool to fire them up and run a Roon Server. Realize many would disagree, but don’t think they are suitable platforms.
Also have a simple network. Great Internet with a dumbed/bridged modem, Orbi7 WiFi Network w/Sec Features, but my Roon is connected by Cat8 Cable via an unmanaged switch I picked up at Best Buy.
Have Roon Server configured to max Cores. Would love to pickup a new Mac Mini, but the existing M2 is running between 20-60% CPU utilization, which is a bit much. However, between my forthcoming purchase (taking over things that Muse currently does) and the next Roon update it will likely do fine for a couple years - unless there was something that an M4 Mac Mini could improve 
Roon’s value to me is the consistent user experience across my other toys. Even my girlfriend, who can barely operate a TV, likes using Roon when she comes over and can intuitively pick which of my five systems to send something “appropriate” to
Agree with your comments
yes
yes
yes
I am biting my tongue until the 20th (and BTW I realise we may need some point releases before it beds in - but simple performance needs to work)
Then IMO they have failed 
I have a high bias at the moment, with Roon not working well (and again really really no changes at my end!) however I am waiting for the new update patiently.
Agree users will have different priorities - i just sense a ground swell on the forums lately about performance / stability.
Like other users a reboot - “fixes it” for about 2-3 days.
However we are drifting into my issues not the title. which is Roon should expect their users to have a love of music and not necessary a love of databases.
Then other people who reported improvements disagree. That doesn’t mean that all problems are fixed, they never are in a system that runs in so many different environments. Problems remaining doesn’t constitute failure, and some fundamental improvements can easily have lead times of a year or more.
These users always exist, and their experiences are certainly real, but you can’t draw the conclusion from this that nothing was achieved, how widespread the problems are, and what their causes are. In the „long delays“ complaint thread I keep telling people to open support cases about their individual issues and all I get is essentially „why should I“.
I just answered a specific, somewhat misleading claim.
Yes, I think this topis is a better discussion (i.e Roon expect a level of technology navigation is high, where I think your love of music should be high) you shouldnt need to understand DHCP, Databases, Linux versions - you should want a nice easy interface to collate and play your music!! < This is what i wanted from this thread
As for the other performance stability discussions that are on the forums , I am waiting for the release on the 20th! (as these are designed to assist)
I don’t think that’s achievable in a networked, complex, and flexible system. Roon is not a Tidal app running on a single phone or whatever, nor should it be. These simple and limited solutions already exist, and that’s great for the people who like them. Just like Netflix apps exist and that’s great, but there’s also Plex.
Again, I dont agree, I think it really should be aiming for the likes of spotify and Tidial and NOT going the way of plex. (I run all of these) - I think Roon needs to be as simple as possible, install, next, next - plex / emby are for the tinkerers again……something like Infuse would work as Roon in your analogy…, simply install point and GO - there is no right or wrong here, i just dont think Roon is going to grow if you are aiming at a Music / Technical cross over audience….and no growth eventually will hits us both!
In short my view is it really needs to be as much like Netflix / spotify as it can be (and I am love to tinker, it should be black box) .
Are you saying Roon should be very open and say hey “if you like music and love messing about with tech, come on board? - This is a venn diagram!
You are free to.
I just think that if we have the ability für users to realize a wide range of systems from a one-laptop solution to a Linux server of their choice with 20 different endpoints, there is always going to be complexity and network complications. If you run a Linux server there is no way how you don’t have to know a few things about Linux versions, for instance.
Same for all the things Roon can do with databases in contrast to the user only being allowed the choice of „favorite? Yes/no“ like in the simple streaming apps.
Saying „it should be more like Tidal“ without an idea for how to achieve this while retaining what Roon provides, is just not very interesting. We would all like that, like we would have our cake and eat it too.
I dont run a linux server - i have bought a nucleus + - which is a all in one plug in and work solution (and is sold as such)
(I know it runs linux) - but yes, we are miles apart in our philosophy - which is OK - no product would move forward if there wasnt differentiating views!
I quote…
Nucleus One is a purpose-built turn-key device specifically intended for Roon. Enjoy easy set-up, plug-and-play simplicity, and automatic updates… no computer or networking skills required. “
my bold.
So with me having a Nucleus PLus this is the philosophy - however i do understand that there are other “server” options with people tinkering with processor / memory / ssd etc.
But if they sell it as not needing IT skills…then…you shouldnt need them!!!
So I still agree with the original post
But you said:
I meant that Roon lets you choose so, and in this case the user will have to know some things.
DHCP is one of the things people get themselves into trouble precisely because they mess with it, and this ability will always be there as DCHP is a basis for how things works at all.