Roon and Tidal playlist sync issue (ref#8NT09E)

[Vadim_Lvov (Vad62)]

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· Music won’t play or issues with my library

Music won’t play or issues with my library

· Streaming tracks greyed out or unavailable

Tell us what's going on

· Playlists in Roon and the Tidal app became significantly different

Tell us about your home network

· Wired network, Kinetic Sprinter

[Vadim_Lvov (Vad62)]

Roon is installed on NUC with Rock. After the Roon update(Changes to Tidal) , some playlists in Roon and the Tidal app became significantly different. I tried re-authorizing, reloading, etc. For example, playlists with New Arrival:

Tidal app

Roon app

Everything is fine with Qobuz, the playlists are identical. I tried clearing the cache on the server; it worked once. After updating the playlist on Tidal’s side, the same thing happened again.

[benjamin]

Hey @Vadim_Lvov,

Thanks so much for writing in and for sharing your report, and I totally hear you. There’s nothing quite like the frustration of spotting a new release on the Tidal app only to find it hasn’t “arrived” in Roon just yet.

To give you some context on why this happens: Roon doesn’t just “mirror” the Tidal app in real-time. Instead, Roon periodically syncs with Tidal’s database to pull in that music along with all the deep metadata (credits, reviews, and high-res art) that makes Roon, well… Roon.

A few things to keep in mind:

• There is often a slight delay between when Tidal updates their own servers and when they make that data available to third-party partners via their API.
• Usually, these playlists catch up within a few hours, though occasionally it can take up to 24 hours, or even a few days, for a global rollout to fully populate across all platforms.

Certainly, let me know if you think this is not the case for you. Thank you!

[Vadim_Lvov (Vad62)]

Hello @benjamin ! So, here’s a question: Why, if I clear the Roon server cache, do Tidal playlists sync as they should, without any delays?

[benjamin]

Hi @Vadim_Lvov,

Roon doesn’t actually “stream” the playlist directly from Tidal in real-time when you click it. Instead, Roon builds a local database entry for that playlist.

• To keep the interface snappy, Roon stores a "snapshot" of your Tidal playlists, which is your cache.
• Normally, Tidal sends a signal (or Roon polls for one) saying, "Hey, something changed!" Roon then updates its database.

When you clear the cache, you are essentially deleting Roon's "memory" of that playlist. This forces Roon to perform a Full Sync rather than an incremental one. Because it has no local data to rely on, it fetches the absolute latest version from Tidal’s servers immediately.

Ultimately, this comes down to how Tidal’s API reports “Playlist Last Modified” dates.

Have you tried the Force Sync Button? Instead of clearing the whole server cache, go to Settings > Services > Tidal and click “Edit.” There is usually a “Sync Library Now” button. If this works, it confirms the background auto-sync is the culprit.