Plagued with dropouts for years (ref#9CN9S8)

Support
1

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· None of the above quite fits

None of the above quite fits

· None of these quite match

Tell us what's going on

· I have been plagued with dropouts for years, but it’s definitely got worse in recent weeks. My Roon Core was originally on my Innuos Zenith Mk.3 and I used power line adapters to provide a wired network. Since Roon advises against these adapters, 2 years ago I installed a wired local network using Cat 6 Ethernet cable throughout and incorporating TP-Link network switches, but this did not solve the problem. As the Innuos server was not Roon Tested or Roon Ready, I replaced it with a Roon Nucleus One; this did not solve the problem either. My system now is:
1. Virgin Media Hub 5 Router (typical 380Mbps download; 37Mbps upload speeds)
2. Roon Nucleus One Server (with Samsung 2TB internal SSD)
3. Hardwired network connections throughout; no Wi-Fi.
4. Naim Uniti Star (Music Room – grouped)
5. Naim Mu-so 2 (Kitchen – grouped)
6. Bluesound Pulse Mini 2i (Office)
7. Sonos Beam (Living Room) - via SONOS streaming
8. Control via Roon app on iPad
NOTE: dropouts occur both when streaming HiRes files from Qobuz and when playing ripped CDs (FLAC 48kHz 16bit) on my Nucleus internal SSD.
Reinstalling the Roon OS (Version 2.1 (build 271) production) on my Nucleus One and restarting the Server software (Version 2.62 (build 1641) production) does help, but only in the short term.
On Monday, I completely powered off my network including router and all appliances and left it unplugged for 2 hours. On restart, I only had one, 1 second dropout and, the following day, no dropouts! But yesterday they were back with a vengeance – multiple dropouts, some prolonged. Dropouts don’t normally occur during initial listening but after half an hour or so brief dropouts start and become more frequent and prolonged as time progresses.
I have checked all the network connections, removing and reinserting the connectors.

Tell us about your home network

· Home network described in problem description above

3 Likes
2

Can it be that you have a ground loop problem? Are you using shielded CAT6 cables?

If you have CAT6 UTP try to use these cables instead

Torben

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Cable I used labelled as CAT 6 External grade (PE) Pure 23AWG U/UTP FLUKE tested.

Geoff

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Hello @Geoff_Bishop

The behavior you described—where a complete network restart fixes the issue for a day, and dropouts only start after 30 minutes of listening and progressively worsen—is a massive clue. This strongly points to a network buffer overflowing over time or a “broadcast storm” on your network, rather than a bandwidth or hardware performance issue.

To help us pinpoint exactly where this traffic jam is happening, could you please clarify a few details about your listening habits and setup?

1. Affected Zones

Do the dropouts happen across all of your endpoints (Naim, Bluesound, Sonos), or do you only hear them on specific devices?

2. Grouped vs. Single Playback

You mentioned the Naim Uniti Star and Mu-so 2 are grouped. Grouped zones require a lot of synchronized network traffic. Do the dropouts still occur with the same frequency if you completely ungroup them and play music to just a single endpoint?

3. Endpoint Connectivity

Just to be absolutely certain: when you say “Hardwired network connections throughout; no Wi-Fi,” does that mean the Naims, the Bluesound, and the Sonos Beam are all physically plugged into your network with Ethernet cables? Or are the endpoints themselves using Wi-Fi to communicate with the hardwired router/switches?

4. Switch Models

Could you provide the exact model numbers of your TP-Link switches? If they are “Managed” or “Smart” switches, they might have specific settings (like IGMP Snooping or Green Ethernet) that are mismanaging Roon’s continuous stream of audio data and causing those buffers to overflow.

We will be keeping an eye out for your reply so we can get to the bottom of this!

2 Likes
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Answers to your questions

1. My main listening is on the NAIM Uniti Star and the NAIM Mu-so 2; there have been similar dropout incidents on both of these. I rarely listen via the SONOS beam and haven’t experienced dropouts during this limited listening time. The Bluesound Pulse Mini 2i is now used only for sound input from my Desktop PC; it used to be in the kitchen where it did experience dropouts (before being replaced by NAIM Mu-so 2).

2. After your message, I ungrouped the two NAIMs before further listening. I experienced no dropouts on the Uniti Star during just 45 minutes listening but, after changing to the Mu-so, there were multiple dropouts during the next 2 hours including one lengthy one where I had to manually intervene to restart Roon.

3. Ethernet cable is used for all endpoints plugged into the network; no Wi-Fi steps.

4. There are three TP-link Switches in the wired Network; two 5-port TL-SG105S 10Gbps (which does have IGMP snooping) and one 8-Port LS108G 16Gbps (no IGMP snooping). Both have Green Tech.

I have appended a detailed schematic to provide a complete picture:

Home Network

[Cat 6 Ethernet cable used throughout; TP-link network switches]

Area 1 (Office)

VirginMedia broadband cable input to Hub 5 Router
VM Router Connections:
Ethernet cable to desktop PC
Ethernet cable to Network Switch 1 in Office
Ethernet cable to Music Room Network Switch 2 (via loft and Music Room roof)
Ethernet cable direct to Kitchen NAIM Mu-so 2 (via underfloor)

Network Switch 1 connections:

  1. VM Router
  2. Bluesound Pulse Mini 2i
  3. Hive central heating controller hub

Area 2 (Music Room)

VM Router in Office connected to Network Switch 2 in Music Room (via loft/external cable)

Music Room Network Switch 2 Connections:

  1. VM Router in Office
  2. Network Switch 3 in Lounge
  3. Roon Nucleus One Server
  4. NAIM Uniti Star Amplifier
  5. Manhattan Freeview TV Box
  6. Panasonic Smart Freeview TV
  7. Panasonic Blu-ray Player

Area 3 (Lounge)

Network Switch 2 in Music Room connected to Switch 3 in Lounge via external cable

Lounge Network Switch 3 Connections:

  1. Network Switch 2 in Music Room
  2. Virgin Media 360 cable TV box
  3. LG Smart Cable TV
  4. SONOS Beam soundbar (+ SONOS sub mini)
  5. Sony Blu-ray Player

Area 4 (Kitchen)

VM Router in Office connected directly to NAIM Mu-so 2 in kitchen (via underfloor cable). No network switch involved in this link.

I’ll continue to monitor for dropouts during the next few days and inform you if something changes.

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These have QoS and may be the issue.

Ideally on a network like yours you need dumb switches like the Netgear gs305 and gs308. These have zero QoS. Links below. I’d try these and they’re cheap. If they don’t fix the issue, return them to Amazon.

Edit: I stand corrected. These have QoS but in its simplest form. They are of the same spec as the TP-Link in the OP.

While I appreciate you had dropouts before going this route, but you were using power line adaptors.

Being an ex-Virgin Media customer, the Hub 5 is ok as a router for the 4 ports on its rear, but I wouldn’t expect stellar performance with all the other ports via switches.

2 Likes
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Hi,

I checked the data sheet for Netgear GS308: https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/GS316v3/Gigabit_Unmanaged_Essentials_Switch_DS.pdf

The parts where QoS is mentioned in the document:

• IEEE 802.1p Priority QoS (all models)

• IEEE 802.1p Priority QoS and DSCP

802.1p QoS for traffic/frame prioritization

I didn’t see any reference to IGMP.

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To Roon staff: Which network switches do you recommend? I’d love to know the specific models either in 8 port or 16 ports. Thanks!

1 Like
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mine is an 8 port TP link, I also have a 5 port equivalent that runs VoIP and the ROCK back to the router. Cheap simple and running at least 8 yrs (I had to look up receipt Sept 2017)

tp link switch box
tp link switch box337×470 18.6 KB

3 Likes
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Well that’s pickled my brain. The Netgear info I found said they don’t.

image
image1320×1203 115 KB

The above and (now missing) data sheet stated otherwise. I believe I found the info for the older ones before v3 :man_shrugging::man_facepalming:

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I run the 2.5gbps unmanaged tp-link switches without issue.

I’m not certain yours are the problem.

Keep playing to your Uniti star and if it doesn’t have issues now, I’d point my finger at the network run to your kitchen as the problem or that device itself.

Doing Qobuz streaming without dropout to the music room system would confirm your switches are fine as the problem is between your router and kitchen.

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Normally I have as many dropouts on the Uniti star in the Music Room as I do on the Muso in the Kitchen. Yesterday was unusual in not having any dropout on the Uniti Star during the 15 min listening period. The problem is the same on both, regardless of the network cable route.

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Were they not grouped till yesterday? Having them grouped could manifest one’s issue onto the other unit.

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The Netgear switches both 8 and 5 port unmanaged have been used with Roon since 2015 and never an issue. So, I would recommend those since I’ve had over a decade of use with them and Roon.

2 Likes
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They have been grouped for years. At Roon’s suggestion above, I specifically ungrouped them on Monday to see if/how it affected the situation. Need to wait for a few days to see how it pans out.

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I would also turn off “Green Tech “, also called Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE). In the past many audio device vendors seem to recommend this.

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Make roon play one playlist to all your endpoints at once. If they all drop out at the same time, the problem is with something they all share: the computer, a NAS that roon is reading from, a particular router that’s upstream from all of the endpoints, etc.

If some but not all have dropouts at the same time, the network path from the computer to those endpoints are suspect.

We don’t have any information about the RAAT protocol to know if it’s end-to-end like TCP or multicast like UDP. If end-to-end, none of the above necessarily applies as the server may not be able to keep all your endpoints supplied with data without glitches. But I really doubt that would happen unless there’s a hardware issue. Hardware issues can be unpredictable, perhaps triggered by some onboard component that gets flaky on hotter days or different loads.

Look at the system event log to rule out computer hardware problems using Event Viewer on Windows or dmesg on linux. It’s unlikely, but quite possible that both of your server computers have/had intermittent hardware problems.

- Eric

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TCP since 2017:

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Excellent info, thanks.

This means that roon server uses at least one socket per endpoint, for audio, instead of using one UDP multicast channel that shares one stream to all endpoints. So roon sends the same audio stream n times, where n is the number of endpoints. It would be easier to reason about where the problem was if UDP was being used.

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I have same recurring problems. I’m not especially computer literate. Could the Roon servers be the problem?