I'm having trouble with Roon ARC
Other
Roon ARC can't play Tidal content when on cellular network.
It successfully plays content off my NAS, but songs from tidal will just block for a long time with a spinner, eventually just stopping playback altogether.
Playback of Tidal content works when I'm at home using Roon or Roon ARC.
Probably not a useful data point, but the Tidal app works fine at home and away.
I am experiencing the same issue on the latest version of Roon Arc. I cannot play Tidal songs. However, using Roon at home works fine.
Hi @Manny,
Thanks for writing in to let us know about this issue. Typically, errors like the one you see can be caused by a misconfigured Port Forwarding setting, if you are not seeing Ready listed in Roon Settings -> Roon ARC , please look over this guide before proceeding.
If you have reviewed this guide and still have not resolved the issue, can you provide the following details about your network setup to help expedite troubleshooting?
Thanks for the reply @daniel,
I am seeing “Ready” in the roon settings. I have followed the guide, and at some point in the past Arc worked for both Tidal and my “local” flac library. Now it can only play my flac library, and Tidal stalls.
I’m surprised that this could be a port forwarding problem. On my router I can see a NAT-PMP request in the logs for port 55002, and in the firewall settings I can see that it’s redirected correctly to the internal IP address of the Roon server. Also, non-tidal audio does play, so Arc is clearly capable of pushing some types of audio out to my phone.
My initial assumption that only Tidal content is broken appears to have been incorrect. I can definitely find local content in my library that won’t play. I think there’s some kind of cache on my phone of content that played successfully in the past?
I disconnected from my roon server in the ARC app on my Android phone.
It drops back to a login screen where I can click a “connect” button.
beneath that button is some text and a colored dot. sometimes the dot is yellow, sometimes green. sometimes the text says my server is ready, sometimes it says it’s configured for local access only.
when I click connect I have a long wait while Arc “syncs” with my server.
And now I’m back to being able to play only local content, while tidal content stalls forever occasionally saying “poor connection”. I can also download albums from my local content as well right now.
The tidal app works just fine.
Tidal content will play occasionally.
So I guess my support request could be better phrased as:
Roon Arc connects and plays some songs sometimes.
I’m going to stop pushing buttons now and wait for advice. 
I have the same issue. ARC works on my iPhone for my local/NAS files but gives poor connection error for all Tidal content. Tidal works fine at home on the Roon server playing in the house.
Thanks - I really appreciate @Michael_Owsianicki and @lin_hsiao_yuan commenting with their similar issues, as I realize my internet setup here is a little unconventional.
Hi @Manny,
I’m going to bring this to the rest of the team. I’ll get back to you when I know more.
Just mentioning that the problem still persists on the latest release. Also, commenting so the thread doesn’t “close 14 days after the last reply”.
We don’t offer support for VMs and can’t assist with routing to get the port forward to work. If ARC intermittently loses sight of your RoonServer machine, you’ll need to investigate whether that machine is actively switching network paths to reach ARC. ARC can only handle one pathway.
However, Tidal content is not streamed through ARC. It’s taken directly from their servers. Only the authorizations go through the RoonServer. Since you’re not getting any “Unauthorized” or login warnings with Tidal, there’s probably an issue with the transport we can investigate.
Next time you have an issue with a Tidal track on ARC can you note the track’s title and the date and time and let us know? Additionally, are you running a VPN on your phone?
We don’t offer support for VMs and can’t assist with routing to get the port forward to work. If ARC intermittently loses sight of your RoonServer machine, you’ll need to investigate whether that machine is actively switching network paths to reach ARC. ARC can only handle one pathway.
Well and good. I’m sure this configuration is nuttier than average. I’ll investigate the multi-path concern the next time I have a failure to play any music at all.
However, Tidal content is not streamed through ARC. It’s taken directly from their servers. Only the authorizations go through the RoonServer. Since you’re not getting any “Unauthorized” or login warnings with Tidal, there’s probably an issue with the transport we can investigate.
That’s good news, thanks!
Next time you have an issue with a Tidal track on ARC can you note the track’s title and the date and time and let us know? Additionally, are you running a VPN on your phone?
Sure. Currently failing to play “Hybrid - Tear in the Sky” at 3:45PM CST, April 12.
I also tried playing the next song on the album, “Through the Looking Glass”, which failed.
At this time I appear to be able to play content from my library that isn’t in Tidal just fine. Tidal is playing just fine on equipment on the LAN with the server.
I also just played “Through the Looking Glass” on the Tidal app without issue. (I have not tried “Tear in the Sky”, but I assume it would work as well.)
Additionally, are you running a VPN on your phone?
Missed that - that’s one weird thing I’m not doing.
Per above, I was also experiencing playback issues on ARC over cellular data strictly with Tidal content. (I could play my local server content) I turned off the 1.1.1.1 Cloudflare VPN connection on my iPhone and then Tidal content played again.
Hi @Manny,
Have you used ARC with a different email than this one? We’re having trouble finding your ARC diagnostics. Also, did the last release change anything for you?
No, I use ARC exclusively with the same email address I use for this forum. Roon, ARC, Tidal all show this same email address in my settings.
Re: Latest update, I was cautiously optimistic, as I successfully played a handful of songs after doing the update just now - but after hitting skip a few times I seem to be back to consistent failure to play Tidal content.
7:00PM CDT, currently failing to play “BRIGHTSIDE” by The Lumineers.
Restarting ARC a few times sometimes lets me play another song, but as soon as I skip it’s all over.
This continues to make Roon ARC generally unusable for me. Occasionally a Tidal song will play, but usually they don’t. I just tried again, and didn’t get much music out before it started stalling again.
Why would my ARC diagnostics be hard to “find”? Is this due to the way I’ve configured anything on my end? Is this something I can help resolve?
Do I really need to ping every few days to keep this ticket open while I wait for a resolution? It’s quite aggravating to think that this will just be forgotten.
Closing 14 days after I fail to respond to a query makes some kind of sense, but 14 days if I’m the last commenter surely doesn’t.
Hi @Manny,
Thanks for your patience.
Within ARC (on cellular data), Tidal audio stream comes directly from their servers, rather than re-routing through RoonServer. However, the authorizations still pass through RoonServer for streaming content. We want to explore whether these authorizations are failing.
Can you please elaborate on the network topology upstream of your Roon Server machine?
Do you have more than one network pathway available on the machine hosting Roon Server? It sounds like ARC is receiving an intermittent port test (sometimes the preconfigured network interface on RoonServer is available, sometimes not). Do you see this reflected in the ARC page in Settings as a “not ready”
Here’s what’s happening - either the track authorization is failing between Roon Server and Tidal’s own servers, so ARC never logs this at the session-level, OR the phone OS is under memory strain and can’t log activity from the app. The latter case is unlikely - we’re exploring the first case with the questions above.
We’ll post here once we have a fruitful update to provide. Thank you again.