Playing but not playing

Have an issue popping up every fews days. Roon will be playing and then i pause it. When i try to resume playing the play button flips to the pause icon (as it does to indicate plauying), the little blue levels animation to the left of the track row dances but the play time doesn’t progress and no sound comes out. Clicking to play another track gets the same result. It’ll do this on a track fo 5 seconds or so and then try the next track and then the next etc.

I’m running core on a macbook pro so lots of power but the files are all on an external spinning drive that is usb only. I had this setup before and files ended up getting corrupted so assumed a bad disk. Then went to an external with it’s own power and all was good. That was too cumbersome to take to work each time so i’ve gone back to a small usb power only drive. But now this issue. Is it the drive?

Hello @Hugo_Sharp,

Thanks for contacting support regarding this issue, can you please provide more information regarding your setup here?

  • What endpoint are you making use of?

  • How is the endpoint connected to the Core (USB/Ethernet/Firewire/ect)?

  • Do other endpoints play as expected?

  • Does this issue affect only Local Content and does TIDAL content work fine?

  • Have you tried rebooting Roon yet, is there any change if so?

  • What is your network setup? What is the model/manufacturer of your router and is your Core connected directly to the router or are you making use of any switches, powerline adapters, range extenders, ect?

  • If you copy a few of those tracks to the same hard drive that Roon is located on, do you still experience the same issue?

Please let me know the above information so I can better assist here.

Thanks,
Noris

Hey @noris thanks for assiting.

Actually i’ve had another problem cropping up recently to do with the endpoint where music just stops and the USB dac is no longer visible as an endpoint option. Rebooting everything doesn’t always make it discoverable either. But:

  • What endpoint are you making use of?
    Oppo HA-2 SE DAC

  • How is the endpoint connected to the Core (USB/Ethernet/Firewire/ect)?
    Macbook Pro (Mojave) > Apple USB-C to USB-B dongle > Audioquest Jitterbug > Curious USBmicro cable > Oppo HA-2 SE DAC

  • Do other endpoints play as expected?
    Yes but i haven’t tried any recently.

  • Does this issue affect only Local Content and does TIDAL content work fine?
    I don’t use tidal in Roon but i have found that Roon works much more slowly since moving from the powered ext drive to the non-powered one (e.g. switching tracks and re-ordering lists etc)

  • Have you tried rebooting Roon yet, is there any change if so?
    Rebooting Roon fixes this ‘playing not playing’ issue but does not fix the lost endpoint issue.

  • What is your network setup? What is the model/manufacturer of your router and is your Core connected directly to the router or are you making use of any switches, powerline adapters, range extenders, ect?
    This is my work system. I start roon with the wireless network connected but once the DAC is connected i turn off wireless on the laptop.

  • If you copy a few of those tracks to the same hard drive that Roon is located on, do you still experience the same issue?
    I haven’t tried this yet but can properly next week.

Thanks
Hugo

Thanks for confirming that info for me @Hugo_Sharp. I am a bit confused by your statement here:

Is there a reason why you have to turn off the wireless on the Laptop? I am wondering if this is causing some of the issues here, if you leave your WiFi on, does the behavior change?

As for a few other things:

  • Please let me know your results from this test as it would clarify if the drive can cause the symptoms you describe -
  • Is your Oppo HA-2 up to date with the newest firmware/drivers?

  • What is the source input toggle setting for the Oppo? It has two options A and B, I would make sure it’s using setting B.

  • Do you experience the same behavior on your home network?

  • I have gone ahead and enabled diagnostics mode for your account and what this action will do is next time your Core is active, a set of logs will automatically be generated and uploaded to our servers for analysis. I kindly ask for you to reproduce either of the mentioned issues and note the exact local time (ex. 3:36PM) that you notice this behavior occur at. I will then cross reference the logs to see if Roon is displaying any errors at that time.

Please let me know the above information when possible.

Thanks,
Noris

Another thing to possibly try…replace the Curious USB cable with a USB 2.0 spec compliant micro USB cable… I’ve had a funky experience with the Curious USB cable and other expensive cables that weren’t advertised as being spec compliant. I’ve stayed away from them since.

Just to update on this. My work location has changed and I haven’t had long hours with the same setup. In the time i have though i removed the AudioQuest Jitterbug and haven’t seemed to have the DAC disconnections i was having.

Thanks so far and will report back if the file failures occur again.

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