Roon 1.8 (Build 748/756/763/764) Feedback

Really really miss the star ratings on albums on the initial page

11 Likes

Please ditch the disc drop down menu! The one click disc access was nice and now it’s gone.

Scrolling on multi disc albums is painful as well. Even on a i9 cpu with a titan x graphics card it lags!

3 Likes

Yes. Not that I was aware of it. It’s a Lenova E590, set to 125% (Recommended) by default.

When I switch it off I get the missing roon menu items. Which is fine except the lap top is then unusable for anything else. Grr. I had noticed this scaling issue with a TV screen before but not in 1.7 with this laptop.

Switched scaling back on as I want to do more than roon from this laptop. Need to think about a longer term solution. Wasn’t expecting any of this.

Yes, the rollout has bugs, but actually, it is working. I’m playing music served by a Nucleus+ on multiple devices right now on my network; installation was a breeze, but I know that wasn’t true for everyone. I’m not sure what @Max_Hudini means by “adjustable music server.” The server side of Roon seems just fine to me. And I much prefer it to MinimServer. which I have used and supported for years, and most of the other DLNA/UPnP junk out there. As a server, Roon is significantly simpler to set up than Minim. What is it that you want to be able “adjust” on Roon that you cannot?

I’m sorry, this is simply not an apt comparison. The reference to Plexamp is interesting, and I suspect you are not suggesting it is an alternative to Roon. That wouldn’t even be a bad joke. I have also been a PlexPass user for years. Plex Media Server did not just spring up overnight. It’s been a labor-of-love-and-test-of-patience effort for years. And it’s not that simple to maintain or use. In my home, all our family members use Roon with very little difficulty. But no one except me uses Plex. For home music network playback on multiple devices—you know, those things like Roon-certified DACs from dCS and MSB—Plex would not even be a bad joke. Plexamp Mobile is a nice feature, but the mobile side of Roon is among the least important of its requested features to me. I know why other people want it, and I would likely use it, but it’s not a driver for me. I assume you are simply using Plexamp to illustrate how well a competent company can implement a specific feature set in a slim app. Well, okay, but that’s not Roon. Development of a single feature in a thin client app is simply not the same thing. Further, unless I am missing something, Plex Media Server can only serve music to clients running Plex or Plexamp.

And one more thing: Plex [the company] likes to use the word “audiophile” to describe who some of their engineers are, and for whom they are making products. I love music, and listening over a cheap car radio is more important than having no music at all. I love my AirPods when I am exercising. But Plex is not an audiophile product. And Tidal as the only stream? Please.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not very happy with Roon 1.8, but that’s because I was very happy with 1.7, and most of the glaring changes are moves in the wrong direction for me. In this regard, Plex’s appearance and some elements of the UI are better than Roon 1.8, but IMHO only in appearance, not functionality. But the one thing Roon does do well—play any of my music to almost every device in my house and keep playing music I like even when I am not paying attention—it still does just fine as 1.8. Plex cannot do that.

What a beauty!! I love this update!! Roon has done a great job! Well done! Congratulations!
Very nice features! It works without any problems and is much faster with less CPU- and RAM volume.
Thanks again.
Egon

2 Likes

Pretty easy actually, you just make it a user-selectable choice thus pleasing everyone…

4 Likes

My core is a recent Mojo DejaVu Evo running Linux.

My music is stored on a local SSD but this local folder isn’t seen by 1.8. Nor can I browse the local discs.

As a result I cannot play any music anymore.

Please fix this asap. This regression is unacceptable.

Thank you.

Cheers,
Bernard

If that’s all I didn’t like, I would be inclined to agree [though it is not merely different; it is a takeaway]. I am fortunate. Installation was a breeze, and except for a few Radio hiccups, performance has been fine. But this one niggle is symptomatic of a flawed rollout process. This sort of “change for change’s sake” might have been noticed by people in a wider beta test, along with some of the stability issues others have encountered. I spent a week reading and viewing “best thing since sliced bread” hype. Overall, I am a huge Roon fan and routinely evangelize it in other forums, but this update & rollout have given me pause.

This particular feature is small. You may not care, but for anyone who uses a phone as their primary controller—I have three dedicated iPads & iPad minis for Roon in my listening rooms and still prefer to use a phone—and makes use of lots of playlists, loss of numbering and icons is not a small thing. Not better or worse for you maybe, but a definite loss of functionality for some.

2 Likes

Exactly my point of view!

5 Likes

yes that worried me also, constantly thought - beware iceberg ahead.

They must have known that there were big issues - the Betatesters could not have all been blind to these faults. Then creating such a hype with a weeklong countdown, is just calling out for trouble.

1 Like

Exactly, the problem with this user frustration is the devil’s pact if you have a nucleus server and complex database created through weeks, months, years with pleasure of using (to 1.7) because of features which distinguished it (to 1.7) from anything else and there is no option to move it or use in any other solution. That means you loose all work done and happiness. In this same way like developer who is hearing after months of work that his art is rubbish. I treat this app as a tool to work not as an app for fun to play once in a week some disco music when cooking.
Updates are understandable and work to achieve this appreciated, but definitely no in the cost of removing existing key features.

1 Like

Sounds like an issue for a #support thread. Do you want me to move your posts or will you create one yourself?

My main monitor is an ultrawide, and I always keep two applications open side by side, so that screen is 1720 x 1440. In addition, I use the setting to hide the Navigation sidebar when I’m not using it.

Does your laptop have a touchscreen? That can be used to scroll the sidebar. It doesn’t have a scrollbar, true, but you should be able to click and drag the sidebar to scroll up and down. If you have a mouse connected to your laptop, then the scroll wheel should have the same effect.

Seems fine so far. Just need to get used to a few different positions. I have a problem with selecting shuffle in queue mode. The colour change from set to unset is so subtle I can’t tell if if I’m shuffling or not. Stronger colour would help us seniors.

1 Like

I love it. It’s big, bold, and beautiful. Most pages romance the eye very well. I’m a new-ish Roon user (less than a year), but 1.8 just feels better to me. It seems easier to jump down a rabbit hole of music discovery now.

And thank you for Portrait View on the iPad. Perfect!

I see a lot of complaints about bugs in other threads, but I haven’t found much. Just this…

When reading artist bios on the iPad Pro 10.5 with iOS 14.4, the page jumps around a lot when trying to “scroll.” That may be an overloaded server issue, so patience…

It would be wonderful if Roon flipped the colors on the artist bio and album review pages in Now Playing. When there are full pages of text like that, the UI best practice is dark text on bright background, not the other way around as with 1.8. Reading reams of white text on a black background is brutal.

2 Likes

Faster? Really? How long does it take you guys to start the app? How long does a simple search for artist XYZ take? How long does it take until you see “Releases for you” and “Recent listening” etc. on the home screen? How long does a page refresh take (e.g. when switching between pages)?

It is zippier. Startup and moving around the app.The faster you move around, the more noticeable (I guesstimate…)

2 Likes

I wouldn’t say that is working 100% but this morning is much faster than yesterday night (normal for me). At the moment I can navigate normally like in 1.7:

  • Search Artist (Today <1s - Yesterday it wasn’t even finishing)
  • Overview / Discography ( Today <1s - Yesterday > 2m)
  • Home (Today <2s - Yesterday it was getting stuck all the time or showing incomplete sections)
    But from time to time it gets stuck (not very often) so it seems the performance issues are still being worked out.

TAGS. I have a ton of song level (specific live performances) tags of notable versions. All of these tags are no longer visible at the song level. I.e. I go to an album that contains a tagged song and the tag is applied to the entire album/show. I spent a ton of time getting this tagged / organized and now it’s not visible.

3 Likes

I solved my specific case by creating a super tag.

Tag A contains album set 1
Tag B contains album set 2
create Tag C
add Tag A to Tag C
add Tag B to Tag C

In the Tag view Tag C shows two items, Tag A and Tag B.

But when I select Tag C in the album focus view I will see the album set 1 AND album set 2

and because Tag C contains Tag A and Tag B it is automatically updated when the contents of Tag A and/or Tag B changes.

Solves my problem.

2 Likes