Is the affected network Zone connected with Ethernet or WiFi?
· WiFi
Does the issue affect all file formats?
· The issue affects *multiple/all* file formats.
Which network audio protocol is the Zone using with Roon?
· Chromecast
Does the device show up at all in Roon Settings -> Audio?
· The Zone is listed under the wrong protocol
Does the device play audio from another source when using the same connection?
· The device has no problems with another audio source
Have you checked that Roon is whitelisted in any firewalls?
· I've checked the firewall and the issue remains
If the device has multiple output options, do the other options work as expected?
· Only one output type is affected while the other output type works as expected
Is the device using the latest firmware as per the manufacturer?
· Firmware is up-to-date but the issue remains
What are the make and model of the affected audio device(s) and the connection type?
· Bang and Olufsen Beosound A5 connected via wifi.
Describe the issue
I have a bang and olufsen beosound A5 which is trouble playing back through the tidal app and the B&O app. I got roon to run a multi-room setup with a sonos move, two kef speaker sets and a few other chromecast enabled devices, nvidea shield, a couple of sounbars and a chromecast dongle. The kef's, soundbars and chromecast all work well but the B&O causes problems either when I play direct or when it's part of a chromecast speaker group. I tried using the airplay 2 protocol and that was worse. The problem is that playlists will stop playing. It's mostly at the end of a track. The pause button is visible but the track counter is at the end and the track does not advance to the next track. It starts again if I click forward. This happens if the device is playing on it's own or as part of a speaker group. There were worse problems whiuch seem to have been resolved by resetting the device and reconecting to the network from scratch.
Describe your network setup
I have a synology mesh system with an RT6600AX router as the primary in the basement. An RT6600AX as a secondary access point in the living room, an RT2600AC in my office a WRX560 on the first floow and an MR22ooAC on the 2nd floor. They are all wired in via ethernet. the MR2200AC and WRX560 are wired into the RT6600AX via an unmanaged switch.
Hi @Marcus_Simon,
Thanks for reaching out to us to ask about this issue. I think the next step here is to enable some diagnostics on your account so our technical staff can get some more insight into what’s going on here.
However, before I enable this feature, I’d like to ask for your help ensuring we gather the right information.
First, can you please reproduce the issue once more and note the time at which the error occurs. Then respond here with that time, and I’ll make sure we review the diagnostics related to that timestamp.
Hi, Thanks for the response I was away over the weekend. I just started a playlist on the A5 alone at 13.07, It played only 1 track and stopped at 13.12. Still shows as playing with the pause button available.
I started a roon playlist at 13.14 on a chromecast group, including the beosound A5. This playlist stopped randomly mid track at around 14.10
Diagnostic logging shows two patterns: first, the track download and distribution across the mesh network times out, and the B&O endpoint is the first to reveal what is possibly more systemic WiFi interference. We have a few suggestions and tests to minimize this interference.
The second pattern concerns cast playback commands and device announcements, which appear to reach nodes on this network at the incorrect time. Please verify that IGMP snooping and multicast forwarding are enabled in your router and mesh nodes settings. Please also connect the B&O endpoint to a mesh node via ethernet instead of WiFi for testing.
Where is your RoonServer machine connected in the network topology you have described?
Airplay2 and Cast rely on different networking technologies for audio transport and device announcement. If you’re reproducing this issue on two separate protocols, we’ll need to perform due diligence on the underlying network.
IGMP snooping and multicast translation are switched on. IGMP proxy (which according to synology “allows forwarding of multicast packets based on multicast group memberships”) is switched on and set to version 2. there is an option to choose version 3.
The PC running roon server is connected by ethernet to the RT2600 in my office:
I’m not using airplay 2 anymore. I was only trying it to see if it was better. Should I setup speaker groups using airplay 2 and test again? Honestly I’d rather just get it working with one system.
I just made a change. I took the router that was connecting the roon servver PC and the other ethernet devices in my office to the primary router out and replaced it with an unmanaged switch instead. Because it was basically acting as a switch, there was no need for a wireless access point in that room.
Verbose logging indicates that Cast traffic is failing to successfully pass both to and from RoonServer and the B&O cast receiver. This packet loss is intermittent, but it occasionally occurs in sufficient volume for the endpoint to sever the audio stream with RoonServer entirely and reconnect.
This is most likely a consequence of WiFi interference between the B&O speaker and its direct upstream mesh node. It might also be interference in other parts of the chain that rely on WiFi per the topology you’ve mentioned, depending on the node to which the receiver locks on in this mesh setup.
It’s not entirely clear from your previous posts if the speaker itself is hardwired or relying on WiFi. If the latter, then all of this interference makes sense. If the actual connection serving the B&O is not wireless, please let us know, and we will revisit the possibility that the Cast packets are dropping for another reason.
Thanks again for looking into this in so much detail!
The beosound a5 is a semi portable speaker a bit like a sonos move. We bought it to replace a sonos move we had in the kitchen which would try to connect to an access point based on the loft, the furthest away from the device. We hoped the B&O being so expensive would work perfectly. Sadly not the experience so far.
Anyway, it’s wireless because it only has a usb-C socket, I think only for charging. Everything else is now wired.
This morning I took out another router which was operating as a mesh access point so we’re only running the two rt6600ax and the one wrx560. These are all the newer models so maybe that in combination with less access points will reduce the interference.
I also managed to end up with two Internet connections via two isp’s. The first one was slow so we changed but couldn’t cancel. I found out that if I used load balancing across these the roon server would sometimes disappear from the network. I just have the second wan access as failover now, which seems to work better.
