I am running Roon on a wired network. Roon Core is running on a fairly new Windows machine with an SSD boot drive. Music files are stored mostly in a powered USB drive attached to that computer. The router is supplied by Verizon Fios, with a second ASUS router, hard wired to the network, configured as a WAP to extend wireless. There is also a NetGear 10/100 switch right after the Verizon router to distribute to the wired network locations around the house. I have two endpoints, one Apple TV and the second an Apple Express.
I let my subscription to Tidal lapse because of dropouts, thinking that it was the problem. But I am still getting dropouts even running ALAC and FLAC files stored on a drive. The track will drop out for perhaps 5 to 10 seconds, and then pick back up. I don’t seem to have this problem with video streaming to the Apple TV (Netflix, etc.) or from a NAS, both of which I would think would be more demanding on the network.
I plan to upgrade the endpoints soon, and will do so sooner if they are the likely culprit. But if there is something in the network itself that is more likely to be causing the problem, I’d like to solve that first.
Perhaps the FIOS router? The switch?
Any suggestions on how best to track down where the problem is?
Thanks!
By the way, the addition of a internet radio and the iphone app to the latest release are great. If only I could stop these dropouts!
Hey @Edward_Hartnett – would you mind trying to play via the Windows PC’s system output? I’d like to confirm whether the dropouts are limited to these network endpoints, or if they also happen just playing via local outputs.
Let me know how that works out, and then we’ll have a good sense of where to look next here.
Thanks. I’ll try. It may be more difficult to determine, given the intermittent nature of the problem and that, at this point, the only way I have to use the system output is headphones – while the endpoints are connected to speakers throughout the house.
I have changed the power management settings and tried to disable CPU throttling. I haven’t touched the BIOS yet.
I’ve been running locally for about 9 hours now and haven’t heard any of the dropouts I’ve been talking about. I can’t be sure that there weren’t any – I wasn’t in the same room for most of the time and I did try to get some sleep – but I had the PA amp loud enough that I could hear it from other rooms.
The adding music to library is still stuck in the same place.
I did not hear any dropouts playing Roon locally, but the dropout problem has recurred when I went back to playing through the Apple Express.
Roon is still stuck with the spinning wheel. Restarting Roon and restarting the computer on which Core is running doesn’t help; still stuck with the spinning wheel trying to add 15 files. Disabling and re-enabling the storage folders didn’t change it either.
And Roon is generating a large number of hard pagefaults.
Apologies for late response and thanks for doing those troubleshooting steps. To me all these 3 issues has one reason - network instability. I’d like to look at your logs to confirm this idea (I’ll contact you via PM with more details).
Also, I would like to clarify - your machine with Roon Core and Apple Express are hardwired and connected to the same switch/router?
Yes, the machine with the Roon Core (detailed in the second post above) is hard wired to the network.
The network begins at a router supplied by Verizon FIOS, which is connected directly to a switch that distributes to ethernet outlets throughout the house. The Apple Express is hard-wired to one of those outlets.
A secondary router – configured as a wireless access point rather than a router – is hard-wired to a different one of those outlets (in another room on another floor) in order to increase the wireless coverage and give me multiple ethernet ports in that room. The Apple TV is connected to this router (again, configured as a wireless access point).
