Playback stops / Roon partial failure

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

Intel NUC (6CAY) J3455 8GB (dedicated to Roon)
Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit (10.0.18363)
Roon 1.7 (build 610)

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)

Unifi based network. All Roon devices within a single LAN connected via Ethernet. Local audio stored on a Synology NAS.

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

2x Raspberry Pi bridges running 1.7 (build 571)
Sonos One (stereo pair)

Description Of Issue

After a variable duration (1-10 hours for example), playback fails. Roon interface remains responsive, but not functional in terms of playback. Am able to switch Zones, interact with albums, Tidal and settings. But, playback functionality does not work along with the Enabling audio devices (e.g. attempted to enable and test playback on System Output). All audio fails with both local/NAS and Tidal. Devices do not matter (Roon Bridge, Sonos, System Output).

This issue has occurred for months. Audio playback works at most for about a day before it stops.

Log: https://ufile.io/p9dpvwug

According to the web your core machine is only 32gb ssd and could be running out of disk space as one issue, it’s also a very slow and perhaps underpowered core too.

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Thank you for your reply. Disk space is not a problem. This NUC has a 256GB SSD.

The Celeron processor in the NUC may not be recommended, but it is reasonably fast. When it is functioning, it is sufficiently responsive and easily streams to multiple bridges with moderate CPU load.

Roon Core runs very well for a duration of hours and then fails. Seems very unlikely to be an issue of performance.

Heat possibly? are the fans running at the time or is the unit getting hot? Older Nucs can get dust clogging the heatsink cooling fins. This can cause thermal throttling.

No, heat is not an issue. For a multitude of reasons. The J3455 like all modern processors has onboard thermal management. Even if throttled, it should not cause a failure unless Roon Core deliberately stops playback when some performance condition occurs, in which I assume this would not happen silently and there would be a number of relevant log messages documenting the occurrence.

But, again, wrong tree. Cold room. Modern processor. Monitored via Zabbix. Thermal issues are non existent, nor is CPU contention.

Have already tested the memory with MemTest86. SSD performance is excellent. I do not suspect hardware being an issue.

I would prefer to diagnose this versus continuing to speculate. I’ve attached the server logs. Nothing caught my eye while skimming over the messages.

Given that Roon Core’s UI is still responsive when playback fails, I suspect this is a condition/bug within the software itself. How can I help further debug this? Enable debug/more details logs? Inspecting individual processes?

Anyone from Roon?

Thank you.

Hello @Hamb_Anet,

@wizardofoz is correct here, that NUC does not meet our Minimum Requirements, which may be contributing to the issue.

I took a look at the log but I am unable to locate the issue. Can you please reproduce the issue, note the exact local time + date + track it starts occurring on and then send a new set of logs?

If you are using a Roon + RoonServer setup, please send Roon logs from the RoonServer folder, further instructions can be found here.

Hi Noris. Understood. However, when running, Roon resource consumption averages about 30% CPU & GPU usage with memory consumption at about 700MB. A majority of the time, most of the NUC’s processing power sits idle. My neighbor, who recommended Roon, is running it on his DS918+ without issue (6 RAAT endpoints) and has a much larger library.

If it was because of a performance constriction, I would expect to find evidence of that. Either in resource exhaustion or error entries in the log. Unfortunately, I have seen neither.

Is there an option I can enable this will allow me to increase logging verbosity?

Hi @Hamb_Anet,

There is not, but the timestamps that Noris mentioned will definitely be helpful:

This will allow us to focus in on one specific instance and should help us more clearly identify what is happening at that time.

Thanks!

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Looking through the logs, I see instances where RAAT endpoints lose connectivity (network devices restarted). Assumed this might be causing the freezing of the core. I tested this by momentarily disconnecting RAAT endpoints from the network. Once reconnected, outside of having to manually restart playback, there is no issue.

I would like to test this further, with a longer disconnect duration. Perhaps the repeated timeouts are triggering a bug?

Hi @Hamb_Anet,

It looks like you were playing to a grouped zone when this issue occurred, does the issue occur with the MX3 out of the group as well?

What exactly in the network is restarting? The entire switch / router or just the endpoint is losing connection? If it’s just the endpoint losing connection, I would start to troubleshoot in this direction.

When you post logs, can you please include a dropbox / google drive link to the full package? This can sometimes help us identify patterns by looking at previous logs.

It wasn’t the endpoint. Network switches.

I’ve installed Debian and Roon on the NUC. It will be easier to diagnose this more thoroughly under Linux.

Will test group zoned streaming further. Thank you Noris.

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