Roon 1.3 playing 'Bruce Springsteen, You Never Can Tell (Leipzig 7/7/13)' on Tidal [Ticket in]

I’m trying to play Bruce Springsteen’s live version of ‘You Never Can Tell (Leipzig 7/7/13)’ streamed from Tidal (using HiFi quality) through Roon and I’m just getting garbled sounds (regardless of whether directing the music to a Meridian 818/DSP7200’s or through a B&W A7 and a B&W Zeppelin).

A few other Tidal tracks seem to be working via Roon. If I play the Bruce Springsteen track directly from the Tidal app, it works fine, which suggests this could be a Roon issue. Can anyone confirm and suggest a fix?

Thanks,
Jeremy

It appears to be fine here with a Meridian Prime (AAC/48/16). Aside from how the during the first minute or so I thought he might be having a stroke… Just to clarify, I’m certain it played back as it was recorded.

Odd, I’ve tried rebooting and it’s still not happy. I wonder whether this is an OS dependant issue?

If it helps, I’m running Roon on Debian Linux (16.04.01 LTS) with an i3-4130T CPU @ 2.90GHz and 16GB RAM.

@support could you looks at this for me, please?

In addition to the machine/OS info provided above, this is running on the latest version of Roon Server 64 bit with the music stored on a local SSD (although, clearly, in this case I’m trying to stream from a UK Tidal Hi-fi quality account).

It is working for me to on a Windows 10 Core with Windows or Android remotes. All work just fine.

I wonder whether this is a Debian Linux issue then, or just a corruption with my install.

Well, one difference I think is I’m in the US and you are in the UK? But, it is a very odd case. No other tracks at all have this issue. You might try removing the track from Roon and adding it back in. I added it to Roon by finding it in Roon and just playing it. I did not have it favorited in Tidal or Roon.

Hi @JeremyAH ----- I just gave this a shot on my end and was able to stream the track to my B&W 7 without issue and same thing with my PeachTree DAC. Core running on a MBP.

Is there any other information or details you can provide in regard to this behavior you are reporting?

Thanks!
-Eric

@support Thanks for your response.

The fact that it works on other operating systems, makes me wonder whether this is a Linux/Debian specific issue.

All I can say is that, with the core running on the system above, regardless of device being streamed to (Meridian 818->DSP7200’s, B&W Zeppelin, B&W A7, or iMac), I get the same second of random-sounding noises (with the exception of the iMac, where I get 5 seconds of random noise plus clicks).

The fact that this track plays on my AK240 and my iMac using Tidal’s app and that other people can play it using Roon on other OS’s would seem to indicate that it is not a Tidal or generic Roon issue.

I guessing we may need to test this track on another Debian-based core install, or I need to scrub my current install and re-install from scratch to test whether something got corrupted during the latest update. Another option would be if you could provide me with a trial key and I could then install Roon on a virtual Debian machine running on my Mac (although I’m travelling next week and testing of this might need to wait until I return).

Hi Daniel

I’ve tried removing the track and re-adding it, but without luck. I did think you might have been on to something here as I got caught out by the bug where, following the 1.3 upgrade, Roon couldn’t find most of the music.

J

@support Over the weekend, I created a brand new Roon server also running under (a fresh) Debian Linux install and moved my Roon and Tidal subscriptions over (although without copying any music, as there was no need to do so). I then tried playing the same Bruce Springsteen song via Tidal through my Mac speakers only to get the same issue.

So, it looks like it’s not a single install problem or an issue that crosses platforms, but one specifically with Roon running on Linux (possibly only Debian, but I haven’t tested this).

I’ve just discovered that I can’t play ‘Queen Ft. David Bowie - Under Pressure (Rah Mix)’.

Interestingly, these are both live songs, so I picked another ‘Bruce Springsteen I’m On Fire (LIVE)’ with the same problem, although ‘Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’ appears to work fine.

You’re right - there’s something funky going on with Linux and this track. I just moved my install from Windows 10 (where it did work) to Ubuntu 16 and I now get “transport: failed to load media” (or it just fails to play entirely) when trying to play this specific track now. This happens on all of my DACs.

Same issue with Under Pressure [Rah mix]. I couldn’t find the I’m on fire (live) that didn’t work (the only one i could find was on “Live 1975-1985”)

I seem to have similar issues with all non-flac Tidal releases playing - but full albums have a higher likelihood of working intermittently; they will play after deciding to apply some DSP (even though it’s disabled) to convert sample rate to 44.1khz and bit depth to 24bit. unsure if it’s related as I don’t know the format of these specific troublesome tracks.

Hi Shawn

Thanks for adding your results - it’s good to hear that this isn’t just something I’m struggling with this (and it’s helpful to know that this is possibly a Linux-wide issue).

BTW the ‘Under Pressure [Rah Mix]’ was, indeed, the one your found on the album dated 1975-1985.

Thanks
J

Thanks for the report guys, I can reproduce. Looks like issue is specific to TIDAL AAC tracks + Linux

2 Likes

That’s great news. Let us know when there is a fix available :slight_smile:

@support Is there any news of a potential fix?

@support I ran into a problem a month ago not being able to play certain tracks, which was confirmed three weeks ago as a bug. Can we get an idea of when we might be able to listen to these tracks?

Hi @JeremyAH ---- The ticket is still open in our system, and we are still planning to look into this issue. This particular track streams from TIDAL in AAC, which is why it’s not working like other TIDAL content. Unfortunately, I don’t have a firm timeline for when we’re planning to look into this. Thanks for your patience.

-Eric

@Eric Thanks for the update. Is there a possibility playing tracks that cause a squawk like this could damage the speakers?