I’m not being cagey, I just don’t understand what you want to hear from me. I know you aren’t demanding offline access to return like others here, and I appreciate that. Let me try again to explain our rationale without writing a small book:
We’ve decided that supporting a mostly functioning Roon offline for up to 30 days, holds us back in a manner that no longer allows us to meet the demands of most of our users (now and in what we believe will be the future). We plan to continue to be resilient to internet outages but can make no guarantees about offline usage. We never considered offline access a requirement for local file playback. We’ve required internet from the start, but have limited ourselves in many ways to keep offline functioning for some period of time in a diminished manner. We are ready to move past that limitation.
That’s good news and it seems to me if you had said this from the start, much unhappiness could have been avoided. Instead, you insisted that it would not work even after people posted that it did work for them after pulling the plug.
I think what has been lost during the discussion are that there are two different use cases that should be differentiated:
Extended offline use, going to the cabin without internet access, etc.
For this, I fully agree that alternative solutions are available, including ARC and Legacy, and people can prepare for this.
Unexpected outage for minutes, hours, or at worst maybe a day or two.
Organizing alternatives is annoying or impossible if you didn’t know. Losing local playback the minute the internet goes away is annoying. It seems to me that a short fallback with very limited functionality would not break the bank and would avoid stranded users
Show me please, so I can correct my incorrect statement…
SukieInTheGraveyard
(This one time, at Bandcamp... I spent too much money!)
921
To be fair, @danny did not say this. I was one of the people that “experimented” with 2.0 disconnected from the internet. Danny made it clear that 2.0 is not designed to work without an internet connection and, therefore, not even 1 minute of disconnected playback can be guaranteed. However he also made it clear that playback may continue for an indeterminate period after disconnection.
Zero means zero to me, and apparently many others took it that way. Sure, you added that in that post that it “may” work, but together with “zero” one expects that it can well stop immediately.
Thread titles were edited with an unambiguous “no”:
When the news came to light, myself and others asked you several times what exactly this means. Some people posted that they tried and it played, so we wanted to know for how long. Your answers that I saw seemed always very clear, more or less this:
Or this. Really, what do you expect that people understand if you say "zero minutes?
Yeah, he said things like “zero minutes”, and yes in other posts said that it may, but probably not, and variations of that. Then people kept asking what exactly it means. Some like you tried and reported that it played, then you got an answer like that:
Interesting comment. So we now have to buy licenses to 2 different programs because the one we paid good money for has had this vital piece of functionality removed. I understand from your many posts you are a die hard fan, but there are many who are now being very negatively impacted by this decision and have, to this date, not received one helpful word from anyone at Roon. So, buying/renting another piece of software to patch the hole created by Roon is like getting poked in the eye.
I understand. However, if I had a lot of music files and I wanted to ensure I could play them when and if my internet goes down, I would switch to Roon 1.8 Legacy or purchase a “backup” player. To me, Audirvana Origin for $120 lifetime seems like a reasonable priced backup.
For me personally, I just signed up for a second year of Audirvana Studio at $70 per year. The main reason I paid for this is so I can keep my Roon Nucleus activated when I am away from home, and continue to use Roon ARC. I prefer using my laptop when at my destination and Audirvana Studio works well with Tidal and Qobuz.
My obvious point is, do something to mitigate the situation or hope your internet doesn’t go down.
Fair comment mate. I am, along with many others, disappointed by this. But in the scheme of things its not a huge deal. In all honesty I probably am just as upset about the responses and lack of consideration from Roon as I am the situation they have created. Its been a frustrating and difficult relationship for me ever since signing up. Aloha!
@Suedkiez, you aren’t getting it. I’ll try one more time and then we’ll just have to disagree:
Roon 2.0 requires internet access to work as designed. Missing internet access will result in Roon 2.0 not functioning as designed. Some parts may or may not work for some period of time, and which parts those are may or may not change over time.
Zero minutes is the amount of time we guarantee Roon 2.0 will work without internet access.
Roon 2.0 may work for outages or other short periods of time without internet access, but we can not guarantee it will work without internet access.
You can try at any time to pull your ethernet cable or turn off your WiFi, and you most likely will see that Roon continues to work. This is because Roon tries to be fault tolerant of outages. However, it is not guaranteed to work without internet.
I can see that you took it that way. Maybe a few others did too (but let’s not presume you are their spokesperson). If so, I suggest you (and others) read and re-read my points in this post. Try to reconcile the idea of “zero minutes of offline guarantee” alongside the idea that pulling your network leaves the music playing just fine.
A question that begs answering still:
What is the required bandwidth and latency figures for acceptable Roon 2.0 behaviour? As in Internet connectivity, that is…
Nobody expects that it works as designed w/o internet, just that we can still play music in a temporary outage. If so many are not getting it, consider that the communication may be really bad.
You: “Nobody listens to me when I say that 2.0 works zero seconds w/o Internet!!!”
Also you: “Stop complaining, it works at a reduced level”
It’s either or, really. Yes I can pull the internet and it works, but you keep saying that this is purely by chance and it may or may not.
I am setting this thread to muted now
1 Like
SukieInTheGraveyard
(This one time, at Bandcamp... I spent too much money!)
931
As somebody actively involved in the earlier stages of this thread, and therefore familiar with the concepts and practices of the subject, can I please summarise, yet again. Please note that this summary is based upon the words of @danny and the experiences of those who have tested 2.0 without internet.
Roon 2.0 is not designed to work without an internet connection.
Because of point 1, Roon cannot give any guarantees that 2.0 will work without an internet connection for even 1 second.
In real-life usage, 2.0 may work for an indeterminate period of time. Please note that this will be with limited functionality. Limited tests have shown that this fault tolerance should be enough to overcome short internet outages in the home, but not longer periods of outage.
Because of the above, I conclude the following:
Roon 2.0 will be perfectly usable in households where the internet connection is generally solid, but occasionally drops out.
It’s useful, even if point 1 applies to you, to have a back up music player. I have always had back up plans because any software might, at any time, pack up! Thanks to @Jim_F for detailing some of the options here. Please note that, depending on your usage, there is free software available.
If you are planning on using Roon in a non-internet connected property (a second home, a holiday home or even on a mountain retreat) 1.8 Legacy is available.
One last thing, as an addendum, is mobile data. If you have access to mobile data (and a Core that can connect via wifi), you can run local playback on 2.0 with very little data consumption. This is another useful contingency.
Apologies for any typos - no post editing allowed on this thread.
No, when making architectural decisions like this, you need to have some form of base line for achieving the goal. And i’m pretty sure this has been discussed and evaluated as it is a functional requirement of the service, and also a design agreement of what is “acceptable”.
Good points, mine was somewhat facetious. The task is easier if left to the Room team. Given it’s been made clear we’re service subscribers (I have no issue with that since it aligns with my view), something resembling an SLA with some network/internet prereqs would clarify things.
I rebooted our house router the other evening, and to my complete dismay, discovered I can’t even turn off the (HomeKit) lights without internet. So, I’ve given up! The Internet is obviously a requirement for moden day life, and resistance is futile! If I ever find myself on a desert island, I will make my own music instead of worrying why Roon doesn’t work.
