Qobuz 192Khz track skipping

I recently bought a Raspberry Pi4b to use with Ropieee as a roon endpoint with an RME ADI-2 DAC FS connected via USB.

I works fine except when I try to stream 192Khz files from Qobuz.
If I stream them directly to my Roon Core PC, it works fine, but if I stream them to the Ropieee endpoint I get a lot of skipping track with the Qobuz too slow error message.

I use a wired ethernet connection to the Raspberry Pi.
I tried using an ethernet switch instead of my apple Airport (Time Capsule) but the problem is still happening.

Is there a way to do a speed test on the raspberry to see if the ethernet wiring is good?

Check your switch specs … network speed should be 1Gbps and check your Ethernet cable that’s should be category 5e or 6 at least.
I’m using a rpi4 with RoPieeeXL too and I can stream dsd512 without issues with a 1Gbps switch and cat6 Ethernet cable

1 Like

It’s this switch: Netgear FS108

It’s an unmanaged 10/100Mbps switch.

Qobuz claims a 192Khz Flac file uses 6,971 kbps so I thought a regular switch would be sufficient.
Cables are Cat6.

1 Like

… but a wav 24/192 is 9,216, I don’t know if Roon transcode flac to wav before sending the file to the endpoint … anyway 100Mbps “should” be enough
Can you try with a local 24/192 file? If the issue still appear I should try with a 1Gbps switch

Are you using Powerline/ethernet-over-power anywhere? I had similar problems with those. Replaced with direct CAT5 cabling and all was then fine.

Michael

I’m playing a local album at 192Khz now, I’ll let it play the whole album once or twice, see if it causes any issue.

If I don’t get any issue, could the switch still be to blame because of the incoming + outgoing network traffic?

No it’s a standard Cat6 cable but it does pass close to electrical wiring in the basement ceiling so that could in theory create some interference since the ethernet cable is not shielded.

1 Like

… depends on your network topology … where is the local library? Is the switch directly connected to the router? … but likely the switch should not be the bottleneck .
If the streaming from Qobuz issue isn’t always there it could be your Internet connection/ISP temporary issue

Reading again your first post the error seems related to your internet connection …

It might, I’m in the country with a satellite internet, I get 150mbps but there might be dropouts.

Maybe it’s a coincidence that I didn’t get skipping tracks when playing directly on the core…
I’ll keep investigating.

So I played local 192khz for a while and no issue whatsoever.

@connor
Do you know why I would be able to stream 192khz to my core’s DAC but not to my endpoint even though sending local files at 192khz to the endpoint works fine?

I had Qobuz track skipping and the source of the problem was the rechargeable batteries powering my TPLink media converter were dying and hence the incoming internet connection was briefly dropping out. When there are transmission issues to the player, it tends to be drop-outs in playback, but not track skipping.

So I would check the ethernet path from your modern to your Roon Core. A Netgear FS108 isn’t going to be a problem, unless it’s broken.

2 Likes

I did some more testing and i think my internet is to blame because satelite internet has frequent dropouts that are normally not a problem but maybe roon doesnt buffer enough so that becomes problematic.

1 Like

Hi @Mathieu_Dulong,

I second @Steven44’s suggestion here. It’s certainly a possibility that Roon isn’t buffering quite fast enough to send the stream to the endpoint.

Since Roon will send and receive authorizations and audio streams from Qobuz’s servers that aren’t required for networked Zone playback of local files. So, if your LAN isn’t experiencing issues, but your upstream and downstream speed is throttled or fluctuating, then it would make sense that you’d experience more difficulty with streaming content than with local content.

You can do your best to tighten up the local network hardware to compensate for internet issues: hardwiring the Core to your upstream router, connecting endpoints via ethernet or a digital cable when possible, etc.

If you continue to experience issues, definitely start a post in the #support section. We’re catching up on the queue, so we’ll keep an eye out for it and take a look as soon as possible.

Cheers!

2 Likes

I’m happy to report that since I switched internet provider that problem no longer exists.
I used to be with Starlink since I’m in a rural area, I was getting 100-150mbps but it is known to have small dropouts everynow and then, which in normal circumstances do not matter but it seems like it was a problem for Hi-Rez streaming with Roon.

Fibre became available in my area and it is now working flawlessly.

3 Likes

Thank you for the report, @Mathieu_Dulong, and we’re very pleased to hear the issue has been resolved.

Even at high upload/download speeds, a small amount of packet loss can massively disrupt audio streams. I assume the connection to the Pi is still hardwired ethernet?

In any case, we’ll be here to support if issues pop up again.

Yes it is still hardwired. I only got one track skip in the last 2 hours of listening to 192Khz streaming from Qobuz so it’s much better than it used to be.
Time will tell, in any case I think the problem has always been the internet connection.

1 Like

We’ll keep this thread open for a few more weeks, just in case. Please keep us posted. Thank you!