Roon 2.0 and internet connectivity [it's just like 1.8 now]

But if you had a collection of BluRay discs and you could not play them when the internet is out, would that be unacceptable?

I have a turntable and play records all the time. That is besides the point.

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My point is, and has been, make other arrangements. I purchased Audirvana Studio for when the internet goes out. I use Verizon data to stream from Tidal and Qobuz. Roon is not going to change their minds on this, so complaining is not going to solve this issue.

Dear Miguel, I think that we are all spoiled by Roon: in all our rooms we can choose music from local discs and (for example ) Tidal with one Roon interface on all kind of different machines. Some of us try to extend this dream with other equipment like record players and fancy controllers. Thinking about that I realized that I already have that functionality in the music hardware that I bought. In the room with my (old) records and record player I have a BluOS system with that functionality built in, and I even can train an old tv-controller to handle the play actions, which stay working in Roon. The fun of playing old records is removing them from the cover, clean them and put them on the record player and listen to the static electricity and scratches while reading the cover text, not sending the Sound to another roomā€¦

When I moved to my new smaller apartment in Amsterdam I gave lots of my old hifi equipment to my children, so ended up even without a decent cd-player. For my work/guest room I bought therefore in a sale a simple Marantz m-cr612 with a cd-player and airplay for the guest, but it is also a simple useful Roon endpoint for myself when I am not sitting at my kitchen table with Ropiee on a raspberry pi endpoint

And now we have also Arc! I cannot wait to go to that fancy record shop in Florence and look in my arc catalogue if I have already that disc in the shop from that special label.

having no internet for longer then an hour (or hot water - as last week happened) is an exception.

Last night was a hilarious item on the Dutch journal: a Dutch general (or so) said that under the threat of cyberattacks we must be prepared to be able to survive at least 48 hours without internet, so buy crackers, a transistor radio on batteries, a flashlight, some bottles with water and a Swiss knife(seriously? I have a kitchen drawers full of knifes and screwdrivers)

Now Miguel, to the observation I made, inspired by your Don Quichot endeavor:

  1. I disconnect my internet and I switch Roon on (works)
  2. I go to the artist overview page
  3. I click on an album picture without a Tidal icon
  4. I get the message that the track is not available
  5. I try several times that album and get several error messages, but thenā€¦
  6. I see the graphical analysis on the bottom and the album starts to play
  7. When I switch to other albums without tidal tag, they play right away and I see the graphical analysis on the bottom of the page. (No not a cache, I choose albums I never play)
  8. If I try a tidal album, the problems under 5 and 6 appear again, but after several attempts on a not tidal album the non tidal album starts to play.
  9. Only draw back: I have to clear the picture cache in Roon, to remove the blank album pictures in the overview pages
  10. I am not interested in how long I can go on this way without internet because bluos can see my local Roon albums, without the Roon-tidal extensions :slight_smile:

But maybe an idea for people with bad internet to do this test over a longer time period.
(Of course it would be handy to have the no internet fall-back modus built-in, but all the cries here I see as proof how spoiled we Roon users are)

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And my point is: why should I? This issue could have been easily avoided by more careful design while retaining all of the design paradigms of cloud-based APIs.

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Dear Jim,

You have stated previously that you have almost/virtually no local files and you do almost of all your digital music listening via streaming, in which case when your Internet is out you basically have no digital music regardless what software you use.

There many people who are in the opposite spectrum, people who have significant local files or people who donā€™t use Tidal or Qobuz. I am in that category. No Tidal nor Qobuz available where I live and I have significant collection which I have collected for more than 3 decades since my high school years. Plus, my Internet have problems quite often. Why shouldnā€™t I be able to listen to my own files which are all local?

You assume that your situation, your proposes solution would be applicable to everybody. No, absolutely not. So, please stop preaching your non-pragmatic minimalism. It does not work for everybody.

Thank you.

As I have stated before, I do play records. Check my instagram account at @ongakumeansmusic if you want to see my setup and such. I also made provisions for accessing my local library via MinimServer and the dCS Mosaic app.

But all of this is beside the point. Right now, I have to worry about Roon and I have to make accommodations for when my internet connection flakes out. This, I would argue, goes against the Roon desire to become an appliance-like application.

The key point I am trying to make is that all of this could have been easily avoided while retaining all of the paradigms of cloud-based APIs. This is done in all enterprise-level applications that canā€™t simply stop working if the internet is out for 1 minute - which happens more often that you think even with the best of connections. I would like the Roon team to consider this and make a fix but I presume that they are knee-deep in the current design and such a change would require some rearchitecture and testing.

As for your test, it just proves my presumption of what the problem is: The Roon code works fine as long as one of the API calls to a cloud-based function is not touched. The moment it is something in Roon will fail. You donā€™t really know exactly when this will happen.

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One more point here: Audirvana (which I own but never use other than for library checks) NEVER fails to play local files. Ever. And searches TIDAL and Qobuz blazingly fast. This is not to dismiss Roonā€™s intention to move APIs to the cloud, just that some software designers like Demien from Audirvana will likely never break the basic tenet that playing local is an absolute must.

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He also said audivarna would be free for everā€¦that didnā€™t happen thoā€¦just sayinā€™

FWIW, I started trying to use 1.8 Legacy if/when my internet is out and my 2.0 core canā€™t be used. I played with it this morning becauseā€¦ wait for itā€¦ my internet was out!

Bottom line, even if I could get it to work (I didnā€™t) it would require not only installing 1.8 Legacy on a separate computer from my 2.0 core, cranking it up, and then transferring the license, but would also require using 1.8 Legacy remote software on my phone/iPad/etcā€¦ All in all, likely far more trouble than itā€™s worth if itā€™s even possible.

Fortunately, my internet was only out for an hour or so, so my motivation dwindled quickly. And, maybe, just maybe, that is the best response to attempting to stream my local music when the internet is out.

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Yes, the remotes need to be on the same version of Roon, either 2.0 or 1.8 legacy. You donā€™t really transfer you license, you simply unauthorize one core and authorize another core.

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But the auth process needs the internet so you either run 1.8 or 2.0 you canā€™t have both authorized at the same time without 2 licenses.

Not directed at you Jimā€¦just referring to your post

@Jim_F - right. Semantics. I meant what you said - unauthorize 2.0 and authorize 1.8 Legacy. But, as @wizardofoz said, I believe you actually need the internet to do the unauthorize/authorize dance.

You can use your cellular hotspot to do this. Before Roon ARC, I did this all the time when away from home. Since Roon ARC, I use Audirvana away from home.

Not so easy with rock but might depend on your router options too. Still itā€™s a kludge that in most cases folks shouldnā€™t have to loop through.

I have a Roon Nucleus at home connected to my AT&T U-Verse ISP. Away from home I use my Dell laptop Roon core connected to the internet by my Verizon cellular hotspot using iPhone or iPads. Itā€™s as simple as falling off a log to open Roon on my laptop and click on ā€œDisconnectā€ the Nucleus and then ā€œUse This PCā€ and ā€œUnauthorizeā€ the Nucleus. What could be easier?

Your situation is not the same to other peopleā€™s situations. I donā€™t listen to music on the run. I enjoy music from my non-portable systems. Heavy two channel speakers, heavy amplifiers, heavy preamplifier, heck, even a heavy DAC.

I donā€™t usually listen to music seriously any other way.

Bump post read.

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But still the reply to Jims post doesnā€™t show automatically? Really strange behaviour from the forum softwareā€¦

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Ooooooh, Iā€™d not noticed the reply part, simply that the thread was ā€œstuckā€. The plot thickensā€¦

@Jim_F - So would this work if the Nucleus was not connected to the internet (and your laptop was via your phone hotspot)?