· Nucleus Rev A
· Other
· The Nucleus boots up and I can connect to it in the Roon app without issue, but I have a question about configuration/storage/attached devices
Nucleus Crashing even though I am no longer using Internal Drive to store music
For additional information, I have been dealing with crashing for the past year. I decided to try to stop using my internal library because I had a feeling that the issue was corrupt files. So I have been only using Tidal for the past month and the system has consistantly been working correctly. Tonight it crashed for the first time in maybe a month. I tried to reboot the Nucleus with the web interface and it did reboot but the attached thumb drive that stores my backup was not visible. I tried to unplug the nucleus and do a hard reset but the thumb drive still was not visible to retrieve the backup. I unplugged the thumb drive and then it was able to see the back up. I tried to restore it with yesterdays backup but it did not work. Then I tried with the backup from a few days ago and it did work. I noticed on the backup files the one that worked was Version 2.58 (build 1608) and yesterday’s that didn’t work was Version 2.6 (build 1629). Can you look in the logs to see what the issue was? The first crash was around 8:25 PM Central Time.
What is your Track count and how much RAM do you have
if Nucleus doesn’t have enough RAM it simply crashes
4GB and 6,500 tracks
4 gb is very small , even with a small track count . do you have any Tidal/Qobuz tracks or is the 6500 the total as shown on the home page
I use a NUC i7 with 32 Gb but my track count is significantly higher
More RAM if you can do it wouldn’t hurt, lets see what support come up with
ROCK (Nucleus) doesn’t handle disc swapping if memory gets low it just crashes
The original specs for the base model Nucleus with 4GB of RAM said it should be suitable for 10,000 albums / 100,000 tracks. 
I appreciate that but 4Gb would be considered small these days despite how Roon specified it. Lets see what support suggest
Hi @Dave_Murphy,
I’ve taken a look at the diagnostics from your Nucleus, and I wanted to step in regarding the RAM discussion. For a library size of ~6,500 tracks, 4GB is absolutely sufficient. We are not seeing any evidence of memory exhaustion or software-level memory pressure in your logs, so we can likely rule that out as the root cause.
I did notice, however, that you recently performed a reinstall of the Roon Server software on the Nucleus. Since that reinstall, have you noticed any improvement in stability, or has the crashing/restarting behavior continued?
I did the reinstall after the crash. Since the reinstall I have not had any additional problems.
If you look back at my previous posts, you’ll see that I’ve had many issues with crashes over the past couple of years. I tried to isolate the issue by not directing the system to the 10, 000 track internal library I have installed on the Nucleus so for the past month I have only been using Tidal.
Most of that library was brought over from an old iTunes collection many years ago, and a lot of work had to be done to remove the protected files that Apple used to use so the Roon system could read them. I tried to use third party products to detect database corruption, and it was useless because so many of the files did not match.
It has been much more stable and reliable using Tidal exclusively, however I have still had two crashes so I was wondering if the logs had clues to the reason it crashed.
Hi @Dave_Murphy,
I’ve reviewed your diagnostic data, and I don’t see any critical software errors, Out-of-Memory (OOM) events, or other system-level issues that would typically lead to a reboot. Your 4GB of RAM is also sufficient for your library size, and we aren’t seeing any signs of memory pressure.
Could you please try to reproduce the issue one more time? If the Nucleus crashes again, please record the exact timestamp and share it here so we can correlate it with the internal logs to see what was happening at that specific moment.
At some point between 12:30AM this morning and 6:45 AM this morning it crashed again. It was working when I went to bed and when I woke up and saw your message I tried to open it up and it said I needed to restore from a backup because it could not find my library.
I can see that the Nucleus is visible on my network and based on the data showing from web interface it was connected the whole time.
I am not going to do anything to try and get it back up and running until you look at the logs.
One other thing to note is that I have two scheduled backups. One backup saves once a day onto a thumb drive that is always plugged into the Nucleus. There is a second backup that saves to Drop box every 3 days.
On my computer I can see the Nuceus is connected to the network but normally under “Storage” I see two subfolders: “Internal Storage” and the "SamsungUSBMemory”. Currently only the “Internal Storage” is showing. If that has happened in the past it will usually show up again if I unplug the thumb drive and plug it back in. But right now I am not going to do anything until you review the logs again. Thanks.
Hey @Dave_Murphy,
Thanks for the additional information - we were able to review a fresh diagnostic report, and saw traces pointing to database corruption:
Warn: [broker] detected corrupt database, notifying client Do you have a saved backup that predates the recent issues you’ve had? If so, try restoring from this backup and see if you still experience database corruption.
Thank you!
I removed the USB drive and put it back in and restored from my backup from yesterday. I have been dealing with crashes for the last 2 years so I do not have any backups from before crashes. However since I am not including any locally stored music in my library and only using Tidal does the fact that you are still seeing database corruption signals mean that I have a hardware problem?
I had thought that it was likely that corruption issues were in my local music files becuase they are a combination of older digital files that were purchased through iTunes and subsequently processed through a program to remove the copyright restrictions so Roon could play them (.m4p), others that were purchased through iTunes after they stopped using the restricted format (.m4a) and then other files that I ripped from CDs using iTunes before I had a better program like DBPowerAMP.
When I was dealing with this over the past year I used some of the software out there designed to detect file corruption to screen those files and it would come back that 4000 out of the 10000 files were unanalyzable. I assumed that the files were not recognized because of how I imported them, they must not have matched the “known” characteristics of the files for those albums. As a result I figured the problem must have been with my music files and so switching to only use Tidal would solve it.
It has proven much more reliable and stable but it still has crashed a few times. In the past I would basically have it crash once every 2 days, now it will go 3-4 weeks without crashing.
Any additional thoughts?
It started acting wonky and eventually crashed again tonight around 11:25 or so Central time.
Hi @Dave_Murphy,
Thank you for providing those details and for your patience.
Based on your description, we are looking at two primary possibilities: Database Corruption or Hardware Instability (specifically the system M2 SATA drive where the OS and Database reside).
To narrow this down, we recommend the following steps:
1. Fresh Database Test
Even if you are only using Tidal, your Database still manages metadata, image caches, and background processes. If the DB is corrupted, it can cause crashes regardless of where your music files are stored.
2. Hardware Health Check (SSD/RAM)
If the Nucleus crashes even with a completely fresh, empty database, the problem is likely hardware-related.
3. Build Version Discrepancy
Please try running the Fresh Database Test (Step 1) and let us know if the system remains stable. If it crashes on a clean database, we will take a closer look at the logs to confirm a hardware failure.
Standing by for your results.
I reset it today and created a new backup folder so any new backups don’t get mixed up with the old ones. I will follow up next week. Thanks for offering a specific path forward for troubleshooting.
Sounds good @Dave_Murphy, we’ll be monitoring for your response!
It just crashed around 10:30 PM Central on Saturday the 21st. I had been adding albums and songs to the library from Tidal. I could tell things were starting to get wonky becuase it was seeming very slow and it was showing incorrect album artwork.
I restored it from a backup created last night so it was from after I had reset the database. The artwork is still off.
It is showing the wrong album artwork under the Recently Added section. Attached is an example. Soundgarden album art where Frankie Yankovic’s picture should be 
. It seems inconsistent because the Free album also has the wrong artwork but when you click on the album it is correct. The Frankie Yankovic song still shows Soundgarden when you click on it. I had added it right before it crashed, so I thought perhaps something was unstable and that was the cause of the problem. So I just removed it from the library and added it again and it is still using the Soundgarden artwork.
After my restore it seemed to work pretty well over the past few days but this morning it has crashed several times since 10:30 Central time.
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