Please make it NOT skip songs when "audio file is loading slowly" error occurs

Thank you, I go and update my post.

Lots of the same error message lately. ROON quite buggy these days.

So far, so good :slight_smile:

There has only been 1 time since, where RAAT.exe was using 30% CPU, and so performance tanked.

I still have another bug, even after updating today, where Background Audio Analysis is stuck on 0/22996

Not sure if that plays any part in this issue.

Could Roon team kindly evaluate and tag this topic as either ‘on the roadmap’ or ‘not on the roadmap’?

(As per the “we will periodically mark features … if it is done or not on the roadmap” subtitle of Feature Requests section.)

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For full context of my inquiry, I’ve managed to sufficiently fix the “audio file is loading slowly” or “Tidal media is loading slowly” issues in my setup. That being said, I still find the skipping (if it ever happens again) as highly frustrating and undesirable.

When my wifi becomes unavailable, Roon is able to stop the playback just fine without skipping. Why not to do the same here?

For those still struggling with these issues, here are at least some gathered tips (for the time being):

  • Keep your signal chain as simple as possible. Avoid any switches, hubs or other unnecessary stuff. The higher the amount of devices involved, the higher the risks of failure.

  • Do not automatically assume - despite the popular opinion around here - that your router or access point (wifi) is most probably at fault. Do not automatically assume that using wifi is bad. Do not automatically assume that involving Android or any other “unusual” devices (if required to be involved) in the signal path is bad. Basically do not assume anything and take your time to gain knowledge on the issues over time, as they keep re-occuring. :slight_smile:

  • Do not consider reboot of all involved devices as a solution, rather as a useful way to continue investigating the root cause. The need for reboot is not the root cause.

  • For streaming-related errors, definitely try the usually recommended change of DNS setting to Google or Cloudfare DNS, or streaming service cache erasing, or lowering the streaming quality (bandwidth) to the lowest possible. Also consider testing both Tidal and Qobuz, as one of those might be less prone to network issues geographically than the other.

  • For local-related errors, try to isolate the issue by focusing on all involved devices in your signal chain one by one. Start with devices rather than worrying about cables or other means of signal transport among devices. People usually recommend to verify your core device (CPU single-core speed, cache), router (fast and stable enough?), and core-router connectivity (ideally ethernet).

In my case, the following two actions related to my core device fixed the frequent issues:

  1. Removing USB hub with ethernet port from the device. (Yes, wifi connectivity is absolutely stable with Roon in my flat while the wired ethernet connectivity was causing frequent issues.)

  2. Installing Process Hacker app to automatically max-out Process Priority and I/O Priority of Roon and RAAT, therefore helping out my CPU to handle the load. (I suspect that especially setting I/O Priority = High helped me.)

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To extend a bit on the above, I’ve been testing the following three computers against Roon recently:

  • Dell Latitude 5401 (core i7 9th gen, 16 RAM, 512 GB SSD)

  • HP Probook 430 G6 (core i3 8th gen, 8GB RAM, 256 GB SSD)

  • Lenovo Ideapad D330 (pentium N5000, 8GB RAM, 128 GB eMMC)

Despite the expected, the Dell has not been the most stable core machine for Roon from the above. (It’s the HP Probook, not needing any help at all so far for stable Roon operation.) This is despite not being simultaneously used for anything else, despite wired to the router via ethernet, and despite fast and reliable operation for any other audio application used so far.

While I am sure there is some reasoning behind the observed behavior, I still find it highly frustrating that Roon is so much more demanding (and hard to understand / “black box”) compared to anything else tested by me over the last decade or two in digital audio. Not cool, sorry.

You could at least fix the annoying track skipping… that would have been enough of a compromise.

It’s so frustrating especially as my setup initially loads slow then catches up. I need to be able to disable skipping and happy to wait for the slow load if thats whats happening

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Hi @Jon_Pickles. Welcome to the Roon Community.
I’d recommend you open a ticket in Support to get this problem addressed for you. This is almost always related to a network flaw and Roon can help troubleshoot that for you. You are paying for support, take advantage of it.

Some people get this fixed, and some don’t. There are even a couple users who know they have the problem because they are (underserved) by poor network connectivity in very rural areas.
It’s understandable users might want a different response in this error state, but it would be best if one could get the error state fixed. Most of us just about never have it happen.

We are not complaining about the fact that things are not always 100% stable in our signal chains, be it related or unrelated to Roon.

We are complaining about the fact that the software nonsensically keeps skipping tracks in such situations. We want the software to pause the playback so that our playback queues remain unaffected, that’s all.

Fix the stupid track skipping!

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The causes for track skipping will never go away. For users, it would be great if Roon would correct the behavior of the application when the causes occur.
The current behavior is very unpleasant and annoying…

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As a workaround to the “skipping” issue, I’ve recently skipped the bloody RAAT and sticked with aptX bluetooth in a way described here:

During the last month, as a result, I’ve had zero issues with skipping. Really, 0 occurences. In the rare moments I’ve observed some potential playback issue, I only heard silence for few seconds instead of actual playback interruption.

Still not sure about the actual cause (might be some background WIN OS processes clashing with Roon playback) but, during the last months, I’ve changed EVERYTHING in my chain including router and modem.

So yeah, until they fix the track skipping bug, bluetooth it is.

+1
extremely annoying behaviour. I think “just stop and wait to resync in stopped place” is how I want it too

3 Likes

I’m a new User of Roon and found out this issue in the past days.
Disturbing behavior. As somebody else said before me when i am listenign to a 10/15/or more minutes track and it’s skipped somewhere in the middle it’s very difficult to find out where it stopped and resume from exactly the right point.

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+1
I really don’t like the skipping, too. Please change that as suggested a couple of times above.

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Does Roon skip because it streams directly and does not use a buffer? If so, why is streaming without buffering better?

The skipping really is bad. It seems to happen even more when I am showing friends how cool Roon is. So far, not one is convinced.

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Same probIem here and obviously on countless other threads. I read about this in of the many threads on the same issue (link below) where one customer with the same issue found out that it is the internet service provider is on purpose slowing down connections to TIDAL (obviously because its a service putting a great load on their service). To prove his theory he tried a VPN connection that in my understanding somehow hides form the internet service provider that his connection requests were for TIDAL service. Problem was solved with that.

He says never had problems with the desktop app, but he can came to the conclusion that the TIDAL desktop app is somehow using a built in VPN with its connection so the service provider can not spot and slow the connection.

Why can’t ROON find a similar solution? The whole service is useless with Tidal as it is now. I haven’t seen one thread where ROON admits the problem. It’s tarting to look like Microsoft support threads where they just keep asking for more and more questions about your setup and asking you to endlessly test this and that - instead of just going to acknowledge the problem and try to fix it. Probably they can’t and that’s why its like this. I am not going to continue my subscription like this.

It seems to me that, if any other app on my system can stream that song/file, whether it’s Qobuz, Tidal, local files via iTunes or Swinsian or whatever, then Roon should be able to. I get that there is overhead for all the Allmusic scrapings and database witchery that might contribute to a “poor connection”, but none of the fancy stuff matters at all if the song just won’t play. Job one should be playing music.

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Probably because there are a LOT of problems they don’t control. Roon puts a pretty hard demand on a network. In many cases it will be much more demanding than other apps most consumers use. It is certainly more demanding than Tidal or Qobuz.
While there are generalities to people’s problems, the solution for you may need to be tailored. For example, I saw one situation where Roon found the problem associated with a particular app the guy was using. The user tracked it down to Pi-Hole, he turned it off and his problem was fixed.
If you are having an issue, you should open a ticket with Support. You are paying for the service. Downside is that it seems Roon is running a bit behind right now. :slightly_frowning_face:

I’m the one you quoted, Juha.

My problem turned out to be my home gateway router. It was an old Pace brand gateway issued by ATT. The gateway malfunctioned and caused this Tidal problem after I made some minor changes to the LAN setup, like basic DHCP customization, shut off WiFi, etc. ATT Support dialed into the router and saw my configuration changes and suggested I reset it to factory default settings and leave it the hell alone, so I did that (more to prove them wrong than thinking it would work) and sure enough that fixed the Tidal delay problem and error messages.
I hope this helps.

Yours, now happily unsubscribed from Roon and Tidal,
Rich

Thanks for the comments and thank you Rich for telling how your problem was really eventually solved. Your initial just theory just makes so much sense that I still think of it as one reason. It would somehow explain why all these people in different locations with different setups and different ISPs are having the same problem. Surely not all of them can have network issues that show up just like that after ROON has been working fine before (and many with wired connections so the environment should not change so easily?)

Did you still experience the problem after you started using VPN?

If all these people in the Roon community have so many different network issues and even problems caused by other apps, ROON is seriously way too sensitive for everything around it, to be a mass market consumer service. You’d have to be an IT engineer, app developer and a beta tester to survive with this, and you have to enjoy troubleshooting as much (or more) as listening to music. Perhaps that’s why it’s RoonLABS, we are all just beta testers here.

It was pretty frustrating that after I collected and set up four different headphone dac/amps for a shootout (and I only have a little time to compare them all) I can’t, again, get Roon to play a single song. Just delays & skipping. My wifi is working just fine in all other applications and the connection is very good - and in my opinion that’s all that I as a consumer should know. Not to send descriptions of my setup and try a dozen of things to get it work for a little while and then start all over again.

Someone said that restarting their Roon core has helped with this skipping issue momentarily, and after hours of reading these threads and trying different solutions (instead of listening to music and comparing the gear…) I did just that with my MacBook Pro running Roon - and it helped at least for that one evening.

It’s pretty nice that I can group all these four devices to the same source so easily and compare them, and see the signal chain and all that. So Roon has a lot of really nice features and it’s great when it works, but I’m starting to feel that overall it’s too much trouble. Almost makes me not want to even bother trying, if listening to music is so difficult.

I did vent my frustration by copying the same message to a support thread, and their reply was very fast but otherwise just what I expected: I should offer a description of my setup, and then of course start trouble shooting. Like I stated above, that’s not what I signed up for.

I don’t know if it is a proper question for this forum, but Rich, if I may ask, what did you end up using if you gave up on Roon?

Kind regards
Juha