Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)
Mac Mini hardwired through TRENDnet Gigabit Switch to Synology DS718+ NAS
Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)
USB out to Topping DX7s
Description Of Issue
When Roon encounters the “audio file is loading slowly” error, it skips to the next track. This drives me crazy. Please give me an option to just pause the track when the error occurs so I don’t lose my place while I troubleshoot the issue.
I’ve not mentioned it yet in terms of requiring support as I’m trying to monitor what is actually going on. I’ve not encountered this issue with other methods of streaming, so I find it interesting.
Obviously, I’d prefer it not to occur at all, but as per Mike, it is frustrating that Roon doesn’t pause/buffer (for want of another word) & just skips. This can make an album unplayable whilst it is doing what’s it’s doing.
I like this idea. My garage has spotty WiFi and it skips tracks. If it held for a moment and buffered it would help. I would also like the option to increase the buffer size.
You really should put in a ticket with Support. This Roon behavior is not normal. It’s likely its network-related, but it could be strange other things like a NAS acting up.
Roon is very heavily dependent on a solid network. It moves a LOT of data over the internet, and especially from the router to RoonServer and the endpoints.It can also put a heavy load on the computer it’s running on. Therefore, you’ll get errors with Roon that won’t be evident in other situations, and it can be hard to diagnose by yourself. The Roon guys will go at it systematically, and if it isn’t one of the ‘usual suspects’, they have capabilities to run diagnostics on your Server to further isolate the problem.
Your Roon membership is paying for the support. Get your money’s worth!
I did put this in as a support ticket. Between the repeated cursing and backing up to play the skipped tracks, I determined what the problem was (some wait statements in the application I’m developing were causing the system to hang for several seconds).
I would much, much rather have Roon pause the track than start skipping them. It’s even more infuriating that Roon forgets the position it was at when it started skipping. It’s so counter to Roon’s normal operation. You can queue up tracks, pause them, switch clients, reboot your server and when you come back days later, Roon remembers exactly where you were in your queue. That’s wonderful… until you have a glitch in your network or a CPU spike. Then it completely abandons the design and starts skipping tracks.
But, whatever… call it a feature request or a defect, the current behavior is the single most aggravating software issue I have encountered in a long time.
Totally agree with this request, which would solve what is an annoying problem. It happens occasionally and is not related to our internal ethernet network which is rock solid, but rather to our internet feed which is over the cell phone network as we live in a rural area. Occasionally (at least once a day) the signal drops to a very low level, then Tidal streaming is subject to the track skipping problem that @EvilGnome6 describes. This does not ever affect local files playing from the NAS. If Roon was able to pause rather than skip it would make a big difference.
If you are having to live with spotty coverage, you probably know about this, but you can change the resolution Tidal is streaming to you. It can be set anywhere from Master, all the way down to normal, which I suppose is like an mp3 file.
But I get what you are saying. Some people want Roon to act a certain way in certain error states.
Thank you Scott for your detailed help. For the time being I’m going to monitor the situation. I’ve only ‘piggy-backed’ onto this via the original poster requesting support.
My internet is solid for Australia (which is very slow by world standards). I was thinking perhaps due to covid & many people staying at home, the networks are being subjected to unusually high usage. This was my initial thought…so will keep an eye on it for the time being.
I agree. I might be annoyed it goes into Pause mode, but for a long time, I thought it was because I had some tracks that were not good mp3 or flacs, when it was due to not having beefy enough wifi. Or I originally thought my NAS couldn’t handle things even though it was directly connected to router, so I bought a music server and had the same issues. Then I beefed up my HDD to SSD… same thing. All I had to do was buy a good wifi mesh system.
