I’m experiencing problems with playback on my system with the following setup.
Intel NUC7i7BNH running Operating System Version 1.0 (build 159) and Roon Server Software Version 1.5 (build 360).
Connected via USB cable to a PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC II (APW-DAC II-US-B) with the following configuration:
• Bootloader 1.13
• USB 00.33
• Firmware 2.0.7
Music is stored on a NAS Synology DS213j which is connected to a Verizon FiOS-G1100 router. A Netgear Nighthawk Router R7000 running Tomato and with recently updated firmware is connected to this Verizon router. Both the iMac and the NUC are connected to the Netgear router. Everything is cabled.
From time to time the system malfunctions. After playing correctly for an indeterminate time it either simply drops the connection or it first makes some scratchy noises and then drops out. At that point the Roon app on my iPad shows how the Roon server tries to play the next track in the playlist unsuccessfully and then skips to the next song on the playlist until it comes to the end of the list.
None of the other inputs on the PS Audio unit are affected by this as they sound fine when switching to the other equipment connected to them.
Also, there is never any problem with my setup in the bedroom with a Musical Fidelity V-DAC connected via USB to my iMac. Therefore I don’t think it’s a network error since both the iMac and the NUC are connected to the same router.
At that point it’s not easy to get the the Roon system to work again. Neither a simple reboot of either the NUC or the PS Audio component remedies the situation. I have to power cycle both units before they resume to work together again.
I haven’t noticed any correlation to the media being used. The problem has happened with a playlist of tracks mostly ripped by myself but also on hi-res tracks that I purchased from HD Tracks.
Are you aware of any known conflict or can you give me any indication of what could possibly be going wrong here?
Thanks for contacting support and providing the detailed description of your setup, I’d be happy to assist here.
I have a few questions as to begin troubleshooting:
Can you please confirm which DAC is experiencing this issue? I have noticed that in your post you mention a PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC II but in the post title and the screenshots the DAC listed is PS Audio DirectStream, are both of these DACs experiencing the issue or just the DirectStream?
If you temporarily set the Max Bits Per Sample (PCM) to 16 bits in the Device Setup, does the issue still occur?
Have you tried another USB cable for the DAC or another port on the ROCK and do you still experience the same issue with another cable/port?
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 this issue and note the exact local time in your country (ex. 5:05PM) that you notice the behavior occur at.
Please let me know the above information and we can continue from there.
There is only one DAC. It’s a Perfect Wave DAC that has been upgraded to a DirectStream. As a matter of fact, I just updated the firmware to the newest version (3.0.0 Snowmass). I also changed the USB cable and plugged it into a different port on the ROCK as you recommended.
So far it’s playing fine. But as I mentioned it’s an intermittent problem. If it pops up again I’ll note the time and let you know. At that point I’ll set the Max Bits Per Sample to 16 and see if that makes a difference.
I haven’t done that yet because I didn’t want to change too many things at once.
Thank you for providing the timestamp. I have taken a look at the logs and it seems that something is causing an error in communication with the DAC. I have requested QA to take a look at the diagnostics and will update you once this case has reached their queue but if you are able to run the test and set the max bits per sample to 16 that would give us a great data point here. Please let me know if you are able to do this.
Making the change to 16 bits was the test I was referring to . Please try keeping the max bits on 16 for a little while longer (another day or two) and if you notice the issue again please provide timestamps. If it works correctly on 16 bits without any other playback failures then this will give us some a great data point as to the possible causes.
Now that I ran the system for a few days on the 16 bits setting and didn’t experience the same problem, we can be quite certain that this setting is involved in causing the problem.
Even though the severe problem that I described originally isn’t happening anymore. I still experience some smaller glitches which are probably related to whatever isn’t functioning quite right yet. Even now, I sometimes get a track that stops playing unexpectedly before it’s done and jumps to the next track in the playlist. Also, sometimes the Pause button doesn’t actually cause the system to pause but simply has it start playing the next track in the playlist.
Thank you for running that test. Since the issue does not appear when using 16-bits, I believe that you are likley seeing this XMOS issue:
We are in the process of contacting manufacturers regarding this issue and I will be sure to let you know once I have an update to share regarding this XMOS issue.
As for checking the logs to confirm, I have just looked up diagnostics mode on your account and it seems that our systems have not received any new reports from your machine. I have re-enabled this feature for your account but if the diagnostics still do not come in, can you please manually send them to us for review? The best way to get them over to us would be on a shared Dropbox or shared Google Drive link. If you do not have either services, let me know and I will provide an alternate upload method.
Please let me know if you are able to manually send us the logs for review and then we can confirm with better certainty that this is the issue you are experiencing.
Thank you for sending us the dropbox link but unfortunately we need RoonServer logs, not the RAATServer logs for analysis. No worries though, I just took a look at our diagnostics server and it seems that your diagnostics have come through. I will be forwarding them to the QA team for analysis and will be sure to let you know once QA confirms if this is the same issue or something else.
I have just received the report back from QA, they have been able to reproduce this issue in our lab and have confirmed that this issue is XMOS related, the team is in the process of investigating next steps here. For now, feel free to keep an eye out on the XMOS thread I linked above, and I will be sure to also let you know here of any developments regarding this issue.
. Please try keeping the max bits on 16 for a little while longer (another day or two) and if you notice the issue again please provide timestamps. If it works correctly on 16 bits without any other playback failures then this will give us some a great data point as to the possible causes.