Restoring without Roon backup

I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro to replace one that was stolen from me in August. Being fairly new to Roon, I was unaware that I needed to back it up, thinking that my Time Machine backups would suffice. I successfully restored all my files from my Time Machine backup to my new MacBook Pro, but Roon doesn’t work anymore. I opened the library and confirmed that the Roon database files are there. Can I restore Roon from there, without having created a backup with my old Macbook Pro? @support

Hi @Michael_Crichton — Thank you for reaching out, and apologies for the difficulties here.

We do not recommend using Time Machine for backups because, unfortunately, backup services like that can cause issues with Roon once restored. We have more information about this in our knowledge base.

Without a backup or access to the original database location a restore will not be possible.

Can you elaborate on how exactly Roon is not working? If you use a fresh database do things start working for you? Please see the steps listed below to test this out:

  • Shut down your Roon Core
  • Locate your Roon database according to these instructions
  • Rename the entire Roon (or RoonServer) folder to roon_old
  • Relaunch Roon, sign in, and configure a new install

Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

With my old database Roon gets stuck on “logging in”. If I click on “go back” (upper left hand corner) I can manage to get Roon to open but it doesn’t show any of my music, displaying a message that says “it looks like one of your storage locations could be offline”. Also, it says “No audio devices found” and displays a small white square in the middle of the screen. I can attach screenshots if you’d like.

Renaming the database folder as roon_old gets everything back to normal, showing my music and finding audio devices without any problems, but obviously without any of the information that I had stored in my old database. Is there a way to recover that information? BTW, my Macbook Pro is (and was on the previous install) the Roon control / core / output. @support

Hey @Michael_Crichton,

I’m glad to hear that things are working for you with the new database. Unfortunately, since there are no backups of your previous database, it will not be possible to recover the database.

Because the Roon database is frequently being updated in the background with new metadata, cover art, artist information, and more, backing up your “live” Roon database using external programs can result in corrupt backups.

If you had any Roon backups that were not Time Machine, that could be restored. Unfortunately, since the previous database that was recovered from Time Machine (now roon_old) doesn’t work properly, that data will not be able to be recovered from it.

Moving forward, the best way to ensure that your Roon database backed up is by using our scheduled backups feature.

I’m sorry I do not have better news for you, Michael. You have our sincere apologies for the trouble here.

Ok, thanks.