New to Roon growing pains

@support

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

Roon

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)

Ethernet

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

Bluesound Node 2

*Description Of Issue

I had a preview of Roon a couple years ago. I was really excited to be able to build a core one day. I took the time to build a Mac Mini Core, signed up for the trail and have to say I love certain things, however I’m surprised with many of its short comings. Also, after looking at years of posts I may find myself pondering letting my trial expire.
Top critics
Top tracks- almost everyone’s go-to way to discover new music by an artist, yet Roon only provides top track for albums in your library? Highly disappointing

Search- I have only been using it a couple of days, yet I find myself leaving the app to search in Google, You Tube or Tidal. For example searching for Lovecats from the Cure. Accidentally spelled it Love cats only Paul Anka’s version comes up. Also, since I don’t own the album, nothing shows under top tracks. I had to google it to see if I spelled it incorrectly then enter it again.

Versions of a song- find that I have to go at this from multiple angles. Sometimes it show all the versions of a song and sometimes you have to look it up under multiple artist to see all the versions. For example: Search Over The Rainbow and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole come up click on versions and no Judy Garland. Search Over The Rainbow, nothing. You have to type in Judy Garland Over The Rainbow. Then you find it and more versions. I have noticed this multiple times and I have only use the software a for about 5 hours.

Instructions - it would be nice to have a couple of basic pages on how to navigate everything, set it up, set up a headless Mac Mini. And Bluesound Node 2. Going to the forum is a black hole scrolling through endless opinions, many from people who do fully understand your software’s capabilities. I probably spent 3 days going through your forum and google searching for stuff that probably could have been explained it 2-3 clearly defined instruction pages.

Artist Bios- Surprised that your Radio suggest a sound or you find and artist under Similar to or Influenced by and the bio is blank. I’m confused, your system can find all this information and famous artists who are influenced by an Artist and the is no bio Just the name. Or you go back hours later and there is now a bio.

I really wanted to love this product, after my first demo I have been telling everyone who shares my love of music how your product was my ultimate end goal. Unfortunately, I was surprised how many times I had to leave the app to search top tracks of an artist that I discover, look up a bio, check the spelling, or the album a song was on. Maybe features are coming, unfortunately there are suggestions and forums post going back 2-3 years asking for these features. Maybe I’m Missing something ? Even my first request to your support contact has me being redirected to the community

Just a quick reply to point you to the Roon Knowledge Base. Much more targeted reading there that might help in some way.

Only you can decide if Roon is right for you. You’ll generally find a lot of help here, from official Roon support as well as community members if you have specific questions. Cheers!

Its all there if you look for it, but agree it might be better found if the KB link was actually listed on the help menu or preferences drop down.

Thank you, your right, it is not intuitive to find the knowledge base.

Thank you, for the knowledge base link. Still can’t find ways to correct some of the current challenges I’m having. It appears many in the community have voice the same concerns over Top Tracks ( I’m surprised they just can’t pull that info from Tidal) , Search ( just need a better fussy search like most data basis) etc. like you said, I guess I will just have to decide on my own if it is right for me.

1 Like

Hi @Mike_Slemko,

Top Tracks

We are aware of some of the current limitations of the Top Tracks feature and we have some ideas about how we’d like to improve things here. I can’t provide any specific timelines at this time, but it’s definitely something we plan to address in the future.

Search
We are always working to make improvements to our search functionality and we definitely appreciate the feedback here. I’ve passed along the Lovecats example along to the team and we always appreciate any other examples you might have as well.

Versions
Can you share some screenshots of what you’re seeing here? I’d like to understand exactly what you’re seeing here.

Artist Bios

Do you have any specific examples of this? It’s possible that, especially if this is a relatively new install, that the metadata is still in the process of updating for some artists.

This is dead easy (well not so much necessarily from a technical perspective) but proper Boolean search is what is needed. So many of the countless discussions on Roon’s issues with classical music would be fixed with Boolean search terms being implemented.

@support

Growing pains continue.

Music won’t play: I have had to disable Tidal multiple times and re-enable it multiple times to get a song to play. It is displaying it, however when you hit play nothing happens. Sometimes it not Tidal, but the source( like SONOS) so I have to disable all the speakers and re- enable

No Tidal Tracks displayed: As of right now when I play playlist that are mostly Tidal Tracks they play. However, when I type in and artist(Stevie Wonder, Will Smith) that I don’t have in my library I see the bio with no tracks available. Yet try Rolling Stones all the albums and songs from Tidal show up and in the case of the Rolling Stone’s, now shows top tracks for song not in my library. Still not matching top track from tidal and not all Necessarily Rolling Stones performed (Strange) so not sure where the info comes from.

Every time I’m trying to engage with the product I’m always fiddling with something or finding a work around. Growing frustrated!

Add images

Hi @Mike_Slemko,

When this happens does local content work okay?

If you play to a different endpoints like System Output do things work?

We are aware of some instances where Top Tracks doesn’t display on the artist page. We have plans to improve this feature but we can’t provide any specific timeframes just yet.

We appreciate the feedback!

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.