Occasional random track skips

Hi. Using Roon 1.8 with Innuos Zenith SE as core. Have everything direct wired and good 1Gbps FTTP fibre connectivity to Internet. No issues with Qobuz or Tidal apps used directly.
Using Roon, get occasional random track skips - seems predominantly Tidal sources but have had these skips on Qobuz and my own library content. Have rebooted Innuos core server, changed DNS and other suggestions on the community here - but no improvement.
Never had this issue with 1.7 and Roon version is the only thing that’s changed…
Either it’s an unfortunate coincidence or there is an issue with 1.8 that’s throwing glitches into the playback process somehow…
Any help to fix would be appreciated - though I think I’ve done all the obvious stuff…
@beka @dylan

I’m surprised that there is no response or advice from Roon #support here despite being tagged individually and as a group…

Could someone from Roon support give advice/help on this please?

Thanks

Hey @David_Ford,

Thanks for chiming in on the thread and sharing that you’re experiencing a similar behavior - sorry about that.

For some context, Roon paired with other streaming services, needs more bandwidth resources than just the streaming service alone. As a test, I was wondering if you could navigate to Settings → Services and click on Edit next to both TIDAL and Qobuz. Could you please lower the streaming quality?

Do the skips still occur?

1 Like

Hi @beka For me, I am set to Master quality level when streaming to my Lumin and using Roon or the Lumin app. When I stream using Roon to a Sonos Connect which is lower quality, the file is downsized from 24bit to 16bit and I have never had a skipping issue streaming through the Sonos product at the lower level quality. However, this is not my main system nor what I want to do long term. I do appreciate your help, this is the most assistance anyone has offered so far from Roon.

I have 1GB of internet speed and I am using an ethernet cable so can you clarify where we might have the bandwidth issue? I agree that it appears that Roon needs something more vs streaming from the music app without Roon. But the long term solution can’t be to lower our desired quality level, correct?
@David_Ford @dylan @Peter_Kuehnel

Hi @beka,
Thanks for responding.
In answer to your question, yes at a lower bit rate, the skips still occur.
I am on a direct fibre connection which tests out at 1022Mbps symmetrical with a 2ms latency direct to the peering center in Manchester, England. The Roon core is run on an Innuos Zenith SE and everything is hard wired. We have a professional CAT6 network here (I’m a C.Eng and fibre optic networks are one of my specialities.)
We have no bandwidth issues to the network and regularly stream 4K movies directly from my cloud storage.
I’m not seeing any packet collisions on the network or anything struggling to get data.
We monitor the network 24/7 (automatically) and there have been no bandwidth restrictions or outages at the times of the track skipping.
It has only started to occur after the upgrade to 1.8.
If the problem is that Roon 1.8 core is no longer supported by the hardware within the Innuos Zenith SE - then please let me know, and I can inform Innuos.
The skipping happens regardless of which end point I am using (we have 8).
Thanks for your response and advice - it is appreciated.

2 Likes

Hi @David_Ford

Can you try playing to System Output of a remote and if you see any skips when doing so make a note of the time the skip occurs and the name of the track? If you can provide a few examples, we’ll enable diagnostics and take a look. Thanks!

1 Like

OK, will do.
It’ll probably be at the end of the week now - work piling up!

Hi Dylan,
I’m not exactly sure what you refer to as “System Output of a remote” but here is what I tried today whilst working at home with music playing in the background to try and replicate the problem:
1: Main system - Innuos Zenith SE streamer (acting as Core) connected directly via USB to Kii Control and then a pair of Kii Three’s. This is the most direct connection I have.
Sound is amazing - but had 2 track skips during just a couple of hours of listening.
These were:
Joe Cocker Greatest Hits - from my music Library (FLAC 44.1/16) where the 2nd track - “Could you be loved” skipped after about 25 seconds - straight to “The Simple things”.
Interestingly this also shows in the History listing as having been “skipped” - but no instruction was given…
Greta van Fleet - Anthem of the Peaceful Army “Anthem”- Tidal (FLAC 44.1/24) skipped on the first play. Returning to the start and playing again - it was OK. No indication in the history that the track failed to play fully or skipped.
The track skipped about 20 seconds in - and this was about 14:30 BST today. The Joe Cocker track was about 60-90 minutes before that.
I note that today the Zenith Core has had an update from Roon - the notification for which arrived just before the second “skipping” event.
Hope that helps.
Happy to do any further diagnosis.
Kind regards,
David

In the light of the post here:

Blockquote [quote=“Steven_Hansen, post:25, topic:158747, full:true”]
We have a maintenance release going live today with a couple of bug fixes.
From Roon:
We’ve heard from some users about skipped tracks while playing TIDAL content. We’ve determined that this happens when the remote server at TIDAL, or some network infrastructure in between Roon and TIDAL, causes a connection to drop before the full track has been delivered.
We have modified Roon to retry more aggressively when these failures happen, and we believe that this will resolve the most issues of this kind.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR EFFORTS, ROON DOCTORS!!!”

I have just applied the update to the Zenith SE Core and will continue listen and see if this fixed the skipping - at least from Tidal…

Hi @David_Ford

I enabled diagnostics on your Core, and the first thing I notice is that there are a lot of networking errors, specifically DNS errors. I’d recommend setting your router to use Google or Cloudflare DNS and see if that helps.

I also wanted to note our policy on Innuos Cores, and would recommend trying out a different Core on the same network after changing DNS if there are still issues. Does a different Core exhibit these issues?

1 Like

Hi Dylan,
Thanks for this - I’m surprised there are a lot of DNS errors because the DNS settings in my router are set to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) first, and then to Google (8.8.4.4).
The network seems fast enough, and I’m not getting any DNS errors on my tests.
Can you share what the Core error log shows (DNS) ?
Feel free to email me - use my email that’s my login address.
I can then try and see if I can find the cause and fix the issues.
I’ve not yet needed to migrate from the Innuos Core - but maybe - if there is a performance issue, this might now be the time - leaving the Zenth as an endpoint/server.
As luck would have it - I have a spare Intel NUC - in the form of an Aleutia R50. (A sort of ruggedised NUC).
The specs are basically an Intel NUC6i5SYB with an Intel Core i5 @ 1.80GHz using Skylake-U/Y 14nm Technology. It’s got 32.0GB of Dual-Channel RAM @ 1064MHz and a 500GB SanDisk SSD. Hopefully that will be good enough to run ROCK and become my Roon Core in future?
On another note - I’ve been running Tidal all afternoon here and since the update - no dropouts or skips…so far - but it’s only been about 2 hours.
Regards
David

David Ford MBA C.Eng MIEEE

1 Like

Please set primary DNS to 8.8.8.8 if you have further issues after updating Roon to build 795.

Can you give a rationale for this - and why 8.8.8.8 is the preferred DNS?
I fail to see (unless there is a specific VPN path) why a specific DNS service would perform any better?
Am just interested in your reasoning.

Because dylan said your logs had DNS errors when you were using 1.1.1.1 as primary.

Peter, perhaps it would be better waiting for Dylan’s response here. You have clearly missed the bit of Dylan’s response in which he suggests I use Cloudflare or Google DNS.
My post explains I am using 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) and 8.8.8.8 (Google).
There is nothing to suggest that the use of 1.1.1.1 is causing the DNS errors and so your post unfortunately has not actually added anything in this instance. Thanks for your interest though.
Since the advent of build 795, and the use of it within my Zenith SE Core, I have streamed music over my system for a good three hours from a variety of sources - and am yet to have any track skipping - although it is still early days.

@dylan - an update…
I’ve been running Roon directly on the Zenith SE “core” straight to the Kii control most of the afternoon, and no skips yet… (that will probably tempt fate).
I think 795 might have fixed the issues - but I’ll let you know for sure after the weekend.
Thanks for your hard work - it must be a challenge with so many variables…
if you can let me have a copy of the network issues you found on my core - please do.
Thanks,

David

1 Like

Hi @David_Ford

Just wanted to check in and see if things have continued working okay for you. Let us know!

Hi Dylan,
So far so good. I think your update cured the issues for me. I’ve not had a huge amount of listening time (it’s a busy time in the farming calendar) but I think and hope that it is now fixed…
Thanks for following up.
David