One more thing.
If your DAC is certified as Roon Ready this MUST work. I expect it is as otherwise if it is a USB DAC you should have DSP volume…
Thanks again.
It is certified as Roon Ready. I`ll check with miniDSP support.
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@DrCWO when adding the USB BT dongle do we have to reistall the whole image again or will it just detect it and use it with the existing pairing?
You have to power down the Pi, insert the BT USB-Stick and Power up the pi with rooExtend again. That’s all. The USB-Stick will be detected automatically.
Best DrCWO
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will I need to pair again?
Good question I don’t believe so but never tested.
Try to plug the BT-USB-Stick and anything should work the way it did before.
I’m hoping somebody with experience of connecting a Surface Dial to a Raspberry Pi can help me. After having used bluetoothctl to pair my dial with the pi (following instructions here: Controlling Raspberry Pi with Surface Dial) all was working fine initially, but after the dial went to sleep it now refuses to switch on again. The dial is completely dead, even long-pressing the bluetooth pairing button has no effect. Have I ‘bricked’ my dial, or is there a way to recover from this situation?
Try removing the batteries from the Surface dial, then restart the Pi, reinstall the batteries & then try to pair the Surface dial again. It’s a good place to start and may resolve the problem.
Thanks Paul, but I have already tried that without any luck. The dial behaves as if it is completely dead. I can’t see it from any of my devices (Mac, iPhone, Pi) and I can’t find any way to get the pairing light to come on. I would assume that it has developed a fault, were it not for the fact that this is the second unit that has done exactly this after pairing with my Pi (I returned the first on the assumption it was just faulty).
Hi @Gilbers,
reading about your issue I guess you are not using rooDail right?
This is the support forum for rooDial which is part of the rooExtend SD-Card-Image. rooDial allows to control Roon with the Microsoft Surface Dial.
If you use rooExtend I possible can help you but using bluetoothctl on a raw Raspberry I can’t.
Best DrCWO
Indeed - I’m using a raw Pi, but hoped someone on here might have run into a similar issue. I’d love to give RooDial a go, but I don’t have a way to get the dial into pairing mode! It just seems so strange that the dial cannot be reset in any way.
Use the rooExtend SD-Card-Image with rooDial, take out batteries, reinsert and it will pair and do it’s job. if not the Surface Dial got broken. Did the LED blink if you long press the button?
Best DrCWO
I don’t think you will be able to see the Dial, I don’t recall it ever appearing on any of my devices. Mine is working now but not showing in bluetooth settings on my devices.
As Carl implied, try reflashing the RooExtend image on the card, while doing that leave the batteries out of the dial for a few minutes.
It’s possible that the dial is still “paired” and locked to the pi (it’s a long shot). So reflashing & rebooting may resolve things, if that fails then the dial is probably faulty.
We had that case with two users of rooDial too. If the light won‘t come on the Surface Dial is broken. Best you return it to your dealer and get new one.
Thanks for all the advice guys. I think the Surface Dial will have to go back. Can anyone recommend an alternative?
Surface Dial is great, I like it 
I would recommend to get a replacement unit. As far as I know the failure rate of the Surface Dial is far less than 1%
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I’d love to give the surface dial another go, but my concern is that two devices (admittedly from the same supplier) have failed in exactly the same way. It almost seems like the dial is incompatible with my pi. Can anyone confirm that they have used bluetoothctl to pair a Surface Dial successfully? Is that what RooDial uses, or is there another piece of software that handles the pairing process?
Microsoft have been having issues with hardware quality for a number of year’s and it can be frustrating.
I would recommend a Nuimo but they are rarer than hen’s teeth now. The Doctor’s extension for that which runs on the same Pi is excellent and I bought a second Nuimo and license
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Carl’s process & instructions for setting everything up work! I don’t recall seeing bluetoothctl mentioned in the setup instructions so you’re doing something different albeit legitimate in terms of being operationally valid.
I have had no difficulties setting up and using the surface dial following the instructions provided by @DrCWO
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Hi again.
I contacted miniDSP Support, and they advised me to upgrade my units firmware.
Now everything works as it should.
RoodDial is great!!