Roon 2.0 (build 1148)
Mac Mini late 2012 running MacOS 10.15.7, 16GB i5 dual core
Networking Gear & Setup Details
Not sure this is relevant: Ethernet via a mesh network (Google WiFi). No VPN.
Connected Audio Devices
Schitt Fulla Headphone/DAC, this is not a “listening problem”; Playing music works fine on both networked and connected audio gear.
Number of Tracks in Library
8,000 approx.
Description of Issue
When I click on queue widget at the bottom of the screen Roon exits, has to be restarted. This is easily reproduced. I’ve done it a half dozen times. Oddly MacOS doesn’t see this as a crash and doesn’t pop up the crash reporter UI.
If your core is connected via wifi, then yes.
Roon core must be connected via cabled ethernet to function properly.
More on this can be found on the support pages and here on the forum.
To clarify…the Mac mini is wired to a switch. That switch is wired to a Google WiFi router. No wireless comm involved. All wireless access to the core is via the mesh network in the house but that mesh network is rooted in a router that is wired indirectly to the core.
The core and the client experiencing the crash are both running Catalina. I have not verified whether the current Roon crashes on the core. I’d rather focus on why it crashes on my desktop Mac mini.
It’s great to see you on the Roon Community! You have my sincerest apologies for the delayed response here, we’ve been dealing with a higher-than-usual volume following our release and we’re working as quickly as we can to get back to everyone.
This is an odd issue indeed! For a next step, please reproduce the issue a few times and take note of the date and time (and track that is playing if applicable) and share that information here. From there, we’ll enable diagnostics on your account to take a closer look
It is very odd. I just reproduced the crash twice on my catalina mac. Start up Roon. Set to an audio zone from previous session. Shows “nothing playing”. Click on the playlist icon and Roon crashes. Again, no system level violation so I don’t get a crash report screen. I can restart Roon and do this over and over. There is no track playing on the zone the instance of roon is set to. I’ve got a snagit video of the crash but this support webpage won’t let me upload it.
To confirm, this crash is occurring on your ‘WorkMac’, correct? We’re not able to enable diagnostics on this device, if you could please use the directions found here and send over a set of logs to our File Uploader that would be helpful!
In the meantime, let’s also see if the crash occurs with a fresh database:
I’ll take a run at this later today. Maybe I should just apply for a job at Roon? ;->
The crash occurs on “WorkMac” but the Core runs on “MusicMac” (same type of late 2012 Mini running Catalina).
The logs from the Core and a screen capture of the behavior on the remote after the fresh Core install are at: Roon Support - Google Drive
The result of moving the Core’s Roon/ and RAATServer/ directories aside and reinstalling downloaded Roon from your website: Once I reconnected to the new core installation from my existing client I attempted to click on the empty play queue and instead of crashing the client popped a “try selecting a song” message (or something to that effect; it’s in the screen cap). So crash is gone. So far.
It appears that the fresh install/new database on the Core eliminated whatever garbage was causing the remote to crash. It goes without saying (OK, maybe saying once) that the remote should not crash when handed some corrupted data from the Core. I hope you can figure out what led to the remote crashing.
I would like to put my old database back so I can recoup my playlists and Tidal library selections. What’s the best way to do that?
Update: After restoring the database from my backup on the 7th the remote crash has returned. I’m willing to provide a copy of the database if you think that would be helpful (and if you think you can fix the problem that’s causing the remote crash (or fix the remote software).
Thanks for giving that a try. It certainly sounds like potential corruption in the database. We’ll need you to upload a copy of your current database here, so our team can examine it further.
Database from Core is uploading now. Will take “a while” as my up speed is 8Mb/sec.
I did observe that the new database that did not provoke a crash also did not reference my Tidal account or contain any of my playlists. Probably doesn’t matter as the database problem is unlikely to be related to those. Just thought I’d mention that.
The database is about 750MB.
Thanks for letting me know. This is expected behaviour - a fresh database is essentially starting out fresh as if you just downloaded Roon for the first time, which is why none of your saved work was appearing. And since the crashing did not occur on this new database, all signs point to corruption in the database you most recently had.
While we dig into the database you’ve uploaded, I would also try restoring from a different backup if you have a few to choose from. There is a chance you can find a recent backup that still predates the corrupted database, in which you’d both have your saved preferences, and would solve the crashing issue.
Let me know if you’re able to test a few backups in the meantime
After selecting the folder, you’ll see your available backups, along with the specific date of the backup. This is also where you’ll see the option to restore from one of the backups:
The tougher part of this is figuring out when the crashing started, and if you have a backup preceding that issue that is available to restore from.
Another question for you: are you running Time Machine at all with the problematic mac? We’re seeing a few errors around Time Machine, and Roon typically doesn’t play well with it. Here is more information on that:
Thanks. I’ll go browse. To answer your question: Yes, I use TM on both Mac Mini machines. One of the machines is also backed up to the cloud (but not the Core). I’ll pursue this and get back to you.
I wanted to ping you before this thread auto-closed. Diagnostics show recent activity on a Mac Remote in your setup. Are you still experiencing these symptoms?
Latest status: I purchased a newer Intel Mac Mini from another Roon user. It’s running Ventura. I’ve not experienced the crashing behavior. However after migrating the music files to the new system I rebuilt the database. The problems I have on both Ventura and Catalina (on the older Mac) has to do with leaving the Roon app running but inactive. Coming back to it the next day or a few days later and trying to use the app results in 100% cpu utilization and the process is flagged as unresponsive by MacOS. Sometimes the app will recover after a period of several minutes. Sometimes I kill the process and restart it. This behavior is pretty predictable. I suppose the workaround is to simply shutdown Roon when I’m done using it. Unfortunately if I leave music playing with the App open and go off to do something else the app gets left in an inactive state after the playlist or album finishes. Thanks for checking in with me.
Fwiw, I have tried running roon core on two different Mac minis. One of your vintage and a newer version. I had repeated stoppages and crashes on both. Hourly. Often more frequently.
I moved the core to a nuc ROCK, and haven’t had a single stoppage since. Im certain It’s the Mac.
