Playback stops with shorter tracks (0:15 or under) [Ticket In]

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1

Hi @benjamin

Just recreated the delay after a less than 10 second track.

22:22 - 22:23

Played from this track: The Good Life.

Next track was less than 10 seconds: LWT

Delay / gap / buffering occurred ahead of playing the track: Blankety Blank

The interruption / delay / buffering was quite brief, but it was there. A hang before progressing.

24/96 file type via Qobuz - Roon core (iMac) to Cambridge Audio CXN v2 endpoint.

As I’ve said, this also happens when playing my 16/44 CDs copy, of the above, along with other albums where there is one track less than 10 seconds.

Hope that helps.

It’s a small delay, but if the songs in question were meant to segue, or, run into each other, there would have been a pause.

Edit: and another example of playing three consecutive album tracks and hitting the issue - this time to my iPhone.

22:50 - 22:52

Played track: Backyards rituals and spare times

Sub 10 second track folllowed: Willowedge vision (logotone)

The next track hung for a minute or so, and didn’t start at all after the above, playback abandoned: Albion Festival Report

Qobuz 16/44 track (no local comparison)

Again. Hope that helps

2

@benjamin

Aside from todays ARC access issues that seem to be global, all continues to be going well with gapless playback, otherwise (current early access builds 1203 and associated ARC / Remote builds).

However, I would draw your attention to the fact the are still issues that arise when playing albums that include very short duration tracks, as I detailed upthread and linked to below for ease of reference.

I’ve just played an especially testing example of an album with lots of short tracks, including some sub-10 second tracks via Qobuz (Gescom’s Mini Disc). As was the case previously, an encounter of a sub-10 second track creates a brief buffering/pause ahead of the next track being played.

Playback started at 12:09:42 and I ended it around 12:21, here. There were several examples of sub-10 second tracks that all lead to a brief delay playing the track that followed it (track numbers, names and durations taken from the Roon UI).

Track 4: Cut Begin (Continued) - 0:07 mins
Track 10: A Newer Beginning - 0:06 mins
Track 13: Polarized Beam Splitter (Continued) - 0:08 mins
Track 18: R M I Corporate Id, Pt.1 - 0:08 mins

Playback was on the machine running my core, played back via my DAC/headphone amp.

Roon seemed to handle all other transitions, as far as I could tell, which is something considering what a a challenge this particular recording presents!

I realise this type of playback scenario may appear an edge case, of sorts, and that in all likelihood, the current fix for Qobuz gapless playback addresses the majority of use cases, but I wonder if Roon could comment on the specifics around tracks of this type of duration?

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/qobuz-gapless-playback-gone-improvements-released-with-roon-build-1202/225925/316?u=greg_ince

1 Like
3

Hey @Greg_Ince,

Thanks for taking the time to write in! Your issue is similar, but separate to the gapless playback issue relating to Qobuz, so I’ve split off your replies into its own thread for better tracking and visibility.

If possible, can you please fill out the necessary system information below:

Roon Core Machine

Include your operating system and machine info (Model, CPU, RAM)

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Your network gear (model of routers/switches) and if on WiFi/Ethernet

Connected Audio Devices

Specify what devices you’re using and their connection types, like USB/HDMI/Chromecast, etc.)

Number of Tracks in Library

Tell us how large your music library is, eg. “30,000 tracks”

Description of Issue

Tell us about the problem you’re having in as much detail as possible. Screenshots are always appreciated!

1 Like
5

No problem at all - thanks.

Roon Core Machine

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)
4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
MacOS Ventura 13.2 (21G115)

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Internet > Three Mobile Home Broadband 5g hub (IP Passthrough) > Ethernet > Google Wifi [MESH] > Ethernet > Core (iMac)

No double NAT (this was resolved by switching on IP Passthrough on the Three 5g hub), and the Roon Core reports that Roon ARC has been successfully configured.

No port forwarding rules in place. UPnP enabled.

Connected Audio Devices

iPhone Mini 12 (iOS 16.3) - via Wifi and/or cellular connection for ARC (5g or 4G - also via Three Mobile)

iPad Pro 10.5 inch (ios 16.3)

Both iOS devices connected via Roon Remote iOS app

Oppo HA-2 Headphone Amp / Dac - usb to core machine.

Cambridge Audio CXN(2) Wi-Fi.

Number of Tracks in Library

171,128

Description of Issue

Issue playing short tracks and it impacting on subsequently played tracks.

Playback of tracks lasting 10 seconds or less causes buffering/delay ahead of progressing to the next track in an album playback, except when a short track is the first track.

Examples can be local files or Qobuz from what I can tell - the issue seems to be replicated consistently, but it appears to have been mitigated by the recent fix for Qobuz gapless playback, in that the delay/buffering can be shorter.

The buffering delay can be short lived and playback can resume. It can also be the case that playback hangs. Either way the UI scrubbing bar for the track swishes from side to side for the duration.

It seems to occur across all device endpoints.

I’m currently running early access version of Roon, Roon Remote and Arc.

It’s worth highlighting that this issue does not seem to arise in ARC, just on my home network with Roon, Roon Remote connections.

Lastly, I think this has been an issue for a long time, and before the recent Qobuz Gapless discussions. I had assumed it was just a product of using Wi-Fi connected devices and network matters.

Hope this helps @benjamin

6

Just to to be clear @benjamin this issue doesn’t happen on ARC where it seems to work with my local files and Qobuz.

7

Hey @Greg_Ince,

Thank you for the detailed information above. Our team is aware of this issue and are investigating things further. I will follow up with an update as soon as possible :+1:

1 Like
9

Just had it occur again @benjamin , but this time using ARC. This is first time I’ve noticed it happen with ARC.

The hang happened after playback of the 6 second silent track, There’s A Riot Goin’ On. This halted playback of the following track, Brave & Strong.

Approximately 13:05 today, UK time.

10

Another one today, @benjamin this time a 4 second track triggered the delay of the subsequent one.

This time, playback was from the core running on in my iMac, wired to my OPPO HA-2 headphone amp/dac.

Album: Exposure, by Robert Fripp - disc 1 playback

Playback of Tracks 1 through 12 = no issues, gapless and without delays/pauses/buffering.

Track 12 (“I May Not Have Had Enough Of Me But I’ve Had Enough Of You”) to Track 13 (“First Inaugural Address To The I.A.C.E. Sherborne House”) = smooth and gapless as above

Track 13 (“First Inaugural Address To The I.A.C.E. Sherborne House”) to Track 14 (“Water Music I”) = very brief gap, with UI signalling buffering / loading

14 (“Water Music I”) to Track 15 (“Here Comes The Flood”) and through to the end of the album’s last track, Track 17 (“Postscript”), perfect.

Once again - it’s a track under 10 seconds causing the issue. it took place around 14:46/14:47 UK time this afternoon.

11

Hey @Greg_Ince,

Thanks for the update. You do not need to share any additional timestamps, as we were able to reproduce the issue on our end and are currently working on a solution.

I will continue to follow up with an update as soon as possible :+1:

2 Likes
12

That’s great news @benjamin - thanks!

13

This topic was automatically closed 45 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

19

Is this still under way? I have just found out that not only does playback stop but I have to reboot the ROCK after I try to play a very short (0:01) track.

This definitely worked in the past. I have a number of albums that are not available digitally, and to represent them in Roon I created a little placeholder FLAC file with the proper file tags, and it contains a voice telling me to get the vinyl. In the past, if I happened not to notice that an album was just a placeholder, the FLAC file played. Now it doesn’t and I can’t play anything else until after a ROCK reboot.

20

Hey @Suedkiez,

It is! The ticket is still in the development queue, I don’t have any specific information around timelines, unfortunately.

That said, your issue isn’t something we’ve heard of before, could you please reproduce and share the date and time? We’ll take a closer look and see if any error traces match that of the known issue with development.

Thanks @Suedkiez :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes
21

22:30 CET just now:

  1. Tried to play the “fake” album “Eat Fats, Die Young” by Bulimia Banquet. It didn’t play and was stuck at 0:00
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  2. Then I switched to a proper local album, Tocotronic by Tocotronic and I think I tried to play the first track, This Boy Is Tocotronic. (The same would have happened trying to play the whole album). It didn’t play and was stuck like this:
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  3. Same when going to a streaming album instead, Tidal, after pressing play for the whole album, stuck like this:
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  4. Quit the remote and restarted it, at 22:36 trying with another proper local album, Tocotronic “Es ist egal, aber”, same result.

Note: The play attempts of the proper (Tocotronic) albums were added to the queue, but the first one with Bulimia Banquet was not.

This will only be fixed by rebooting the ROCK, which I will do now 22:38.

Thanks.

As briefly mentioned, the Bulimia Banquet “album” (and others I have) is just a single FLAC file that I created and tagged with the artist and album title, because I don’t have proper music files for it and it’s not on streaming, but I wanted to have my complete vinyl library included in Roon. The FLAC has a short voice sample in it. Playing the FLAC (accidentally) definitely worked in the past.

1 Like
22

Hi @Suedkiez,

Chiming in on @benjamin’s behalf here while he’s away briefly.

Thank you for the report - it confirms our suspicion from the other cases that the buffer is overshooting the track length when under 0:05 and breaking queue order. This can cascade across Remotes as long as you’re dealing with the same Zone and Queue, and it will interfere with Roon Radio as well as you’ve seen in the past (see here: Short Tracks Prompt Incorrectly Timed “Nothing Similar” Popup w/ Roon Radio (0:30 and under) [Ticket In]

This regression arose when we improved gapless playback since the buffer then enjoyed more freedom to roam ahead of the stream. There’s a ticket with development, and unfortunately, the only workaround is to avoid tracks of a length under about 0:05 until this change is merged.

We have an additional ticket to address the UI broken windows in Roon Radio that this regression generates.

Thank you for your patience and your help. Cheers!

1 Like
24

Thank you very much for the details, got it!

25

Thinking about this, I realized that apart from my fake albums there are many legitimate ones with sub 5 seconds tracks. I wouldn’t be thrilled as a user if I have to reboot my ROCK after trying to play these (all examples from albums in my library):

Descendents - ALL, tracks 1 and 3
Missy Elliott - Miss E… So Addictive, tracks 17-28 of the CD rip (silence)
Fantomas - The Director’s Cut, track 13
Gescom - Mini Disc, most tracks
Ginuwine - The Bachelor, tracks 13-17
The Red Krayola, Coconut Hotel, most of tracks 3-38
Sly & the Family Stone - There’s a Riot Goin’ On, track 6

And then there are many more with 0:05, not sure if they fail as well.