Roon 1.8 does not see local folders on Linux ZFS drive [Resolved]

Alright, I put some work on this today and have managed to work around this issue by creating a docker container to run Roon.

Dockerfile:

FROM ubuntu:latest

RUN apt-get update \
    && apt-get upgrade -y \
    && apt-get install -y curl bzip2 ffmpeg cifs-utils libasound2 \
    && apt-get clean \
    && apt-get autoclean

ENV ROON_INSTALLER roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh
ENV ROON_INSTALLER_URL https://download.roonlabs.com/builds/${ROON_INSTALLER}

RUN curl ${ROON_INSTALLER_URL} -o /tmp/${ROON_INSTALLER}
RUN chmod 700 /tmp/${ROON_INSTALLER}

ENV ROON_DATAROOT /var/lib/roon-server
ENV ROON_ID_DIR /var/lib/roon-server

RUN yes | /tmp/${ROON_INSTALLER}

VOLUME [ "/var/lib/roon-server", "/srv/music", "/srv/roon" ]

ENTRYPOINT /opt/RoonServer/start.sh

run.sh:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -o xtrace
set -o errexit

docker build -t roon .

docker run \
    --name roon \
    --net host \
    -d \
    --device /dev/snd \
    -v /var/lib/roon-server:/var/lib/roon-server \
    -v /srv/music:/srv/music \
    -v /srv/roon:/srv/roon \
    roon

You may need to change the paths a bit to match what you had in your system. Make sure to use the overlay2 storage driver for Docker.

Hopefully this restores systems until they come up with an actual fix.

Listening to my local music again right now and didnā€™t lose my database or any data :slight_smile:

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Not a bad option for people with small installs that are using default storage drivers, for sure. Sadly, this is not an option for me as all of my containers use ZFS storage driver, and Iā€™ve no interest in having to rebuild everything to use a lower performance option to work around a bug in a single piece of overly expensive, badly written, and shoddily supported software.

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Right, I totally get that. The advantage here for me was that Iā€™m able to keep my music on a ZFS volume, but let Roon access it through the docker overlay.

This is not a solution, itā€™s a hacky workaround that shouldnā€™t be needed in the first place.

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Totally makes sense, and is absolutely a great option for those who can use it to get fully back online. Sadly my docker server runs a whole bunch more than just Roon. There is no way I could justify the power and cost associated with dedicating a Xeon with 128G of ECC and 122T SAS connected storage to just music streaming. :slight_smile:

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At least we know a fix is available.

Careful QA is definitely needed for correction touching such layers of code.

The whole experience will remain hard to forget though.

Roon was supposed to be, and had been, something that just works. And it was the main reason for me selecting it over Audirvana although Audirvana did sound better.

Now this perception has been trashed to pieces.

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Agreed. Iā€™d rather not go back to Audirvana. As good as it sounds, it isnā€™t so useful for driving audio to multiple rooms and devices, and that was one of the driving factors in my selecting Roon. Now that Iā€™ve invested in hardware for those multiple rooms, Iā€™m not likely to want to go back. There are some other options, but overall Roon sounds better and is muuuuuch easier for library management.

For all my angry gronking, I just want the software to work the way it is supposed to so I can go back to listening to the stuff in my library that Tidal doesnā€™t have.

Yeah, I hate to pile on but Iā€™ve been thinking this for the past month and I guess I should share.

What frustrates me about this the most is that itā€™s (as far as I can tell) a company culture problem more than a technical one.

As a software developer myself, itā€™s hard to imagine how a developer could write code that breaks something as basic as getting a list of files. Generally I only see this in code that tries to do something fancy instead of just using the standard library built in methods, which of course is not best practice, but I have no proof thatā€™s the case, Iā€™m just guessing based off past experiences.

Then, itā€™s hard to imagine how this could slip through QA. While you could argue that ZFS & Docker are ā€œesotericā€ technologies (as far as audiophiles go anyway), Roon has been around long enough that the company is aware that many of us are using such technologies, and thus should either explicitly say itā€™s not supported or if itā€™s supported, add it to the test matrix, especially if Iā€™m right about the first point.

Thirdly, itā€™s fairly common knowledge that shipping big bang changes are risky, 1.8 was big bang change. And see how Roon doesnā€™t allow us to choose which version of the software we run, it increases the risk 10x as everyone will get the software once released with no way to go back if things break, and no way to wait and see if anything is broken before upgrading.

Finally, and probably most importantly, hearing a fix is in QA actually makes me more upset than hearing there is no fix, because while Iā€™m grateful the Roon team was able to identify the issue, it strikes me as a particularly disrespectful that 1) This isnā€™t being treated as a P0 bug (paying customers canā€™t use the software at all) and 2) That theyā€™re essentially repeating the same mistake as in point three. This should be a hot fix into master thatā€™s shipped to everyone right away since it canā€™t get more broken anyway.

If this change is being shipped with a handful of other changes, there is a good chance that this will be fixed, but something else will be broken - and then weā€™ll all have to wait another 31 + n days for a fix for that bug, and so on.

So for me, Iā€™m not that mad that Roon is busted for me right now, Iā€™m mad that Roon has processes that would allow this to happen in the first place, and donā€™t have the basic respect to their customers to fix it quickly.

So yeah, I need a postmortem on how this happened from @brian and what changes will be put in place so I can feel confident that this wonā€™t happen again, otherwise Roons reputation is done for me and my circle of friends at least.

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The overwhelming temperament Iā€™ve witnessed with my limited time on these forums isā€¦ if you can make it work great. When it stops working weā€™ll tell you its not supported.

The only thing Roon guarantees to work is vanilla installations. None of the KB articles reference a Linux distribution that supports ZFS on install.

This really is what I find troubling about this whole thread and the amount of time its taking to deliver a fix. If they are fixing it then its supported and its P0 because it prevents a core function from working. If its not supported then Roon should come out and say that. From a development standpoint there should be no middle ground. Basically, what Roon is saying with their actions is ā€œweā€™ll get around to fixing your experiment when we can, sorry youā€™re completely downā€. They say this when youā€™ve paid ā€œproductionā€ license for the software.

Personallyā€¦ Iā€™m always very careful to run experiments because of this exact scenario. Sometimes I donā€™t mind being ā€œfirstā€ but if Iā€™m running something that I expect to ā€œjust workā€ Iā€™ll stay aligned with how the developer expects users to deploy it even if I donā€™t agree that is the best deployment method.

This. So much this. If Roon is going to be so lackadaisical about experiments and even slightly non-standard installs then they should focus on making sure the code complies with the standard methods so there are less variations to test ā€œfancyā€ against.

Good luck to everyone in this situation.

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Doesnā€™t Ubuntu support ZFS root on the default installer these days?

As of 20.10 its still under advanced (experimental) from what I can find in the docs.

Roon docs make no mention, from a simple search, of any LTS Iā€™d consider ā€œcurrentā€.

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On a related note, the kicker to this bug is that I canā€™t backup my Roon installation either, so even if I wanted to move to a supported system I canā€™t do it in a supported way.

Like Iā€™m pretty sure I could move to a clean install by copying over the /var/lib/roon folder but if anything goes wrong with that based on the support here Iā€™d definitely be on my own.

Hi Brian,

If I am not mistaken the fix has been in QA for 10 days.

Any visibility about the delivery plan?

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Hi @brian - affected by this too. I am sure that it is more efficient to bundle the QA for this fix in with a lot of unrelated improvements. But this is a very bad break for those of us affected, essentially resulting in completely non-functional software, and I am surprised that it has not been expedited as a hotfix.

As you are charging many/most of us on a subscription basis, have you considered issuing an appropriate refund for the time we have been without the use of Roon? A proper apology really wouldnā€™t go amiss either.

4 Likes

With how this is going itā€™s not unlikely that weā€™ll end up with non-functional Roon for a full two months. I agree that the right thing is for them to reimburse the subscription members for the service disruption. Weā€™ll see if they actually do the right thing though.

Or a free lifelong subscription.

As an existing lifelong owner not too sure what we getā€¦

More than one month in now, no fix, no ETA on a fix on this showstopper issue. I and a lot of others have completely unfunctional software that we have paid a nice chunk of change for. I canā€™t understand how you guys can think itā€™s okay to bundle ā€œother post-1.8 changes/improvementsā€ with a fix for completely down (paying!!) customers? I especially find the lack of information and transparency into whatā€™s going on disheartening. Please be forthcoming with information real soon.
Another thing I would urge you guys to seriously consider, is to provide a method for holding back, and rolling back major upgrades in the future. You seem to think that youā€™re running a streaming service, which should be delivered as a service. Youā€™re not. You are delivering a (mostly great) piece of software for playing back locally stored content, with some 3rd party online content integration. That calls for a different approach. Donā€™t leave us hanging like this ever again. Please.

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Apologies for the delay here, everyone. As Brian mentioned, this issue was in QA along with a number of other changes. We know people have been waiting for this fix, and weā€™re feeling confident the next update of Roon will ship soon, with a fix for this issue. Thanks everyone for your patience!

Sorry guys, but there is no more patience on my side. I also do not want to pay for the time the service was not available due to no fix or downgrade being available. Where do I need to send a mail to? ._.

So, we spend nearly 2 months without primary functionality and yā€™all say ā€œthanks for your patienceā€ without actually delivering anything? W.T.F.

That is a nice cold hard slap in the face.

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A date is required at this point.