· Unlike many folks one the forums, I've had a pretty good run with ARC. Recently I went on a long car trip interstate, and had hours of fine, uninterrupted listening!
However, in the last couple of weeks ARC has become more and more erratic, to the point now where it is unusable. In fact, all I have to do is open the app, and watch for 30 seconds - it freezes and becomes unresponsive.
Of course, I have reloaded the app, I have re-booted Roon, etc etc. Sometimes this gives a little relief. But atm, no matter what I do, the most I can expect is 30 seconds of music before it all freezes over and crashes.
I do have an open support ticket for a problem with Roon itself, but as far as I can tell, that problem and this one are unrelated. And the problem with ARC is not altered whether I'm on wifi or cell data, within my home network or on the road.
Thank you for your post, and we’re sorry to hear you’ve been experiencing performance issues with the app.
Diagnostics indicate that ARC is being throttled by the phone operating system due to memory and resource constraints. This is almost certainly related to the size of your library—about 250,000 tracks. ARC maintains a local “copy” of your Roon database on the phone to ensure changes sync properly when you’re back online. This acts as a metadata cache, helping maintain database parity and prevent corruption.
Both iOS and Android impose strict per-app memory limits, regardless of hardware power. When libraries reach this scale, the sheer volume of data processing triggers OS-level throttling, which can cause slower search, lag, sync failures, and occasionally crashes. In our testing, 250,000 tracks is at the extreme upper limit for performance on even the most powerful phones, so some decline is unfortunately expected.
The only way to fully restore smooth performance would be to reduce the total library size—simply cleaving off a section or resyncing ARC won’t be enough. This could involve refreshing your database, rebuilding your storage, or restoring a backup from when the library was smaller.
In the meantime, you may see some improvement by disabling any aggressive battery optimization on your phone.
We’re happy to clarify any of these details further.
In terms of next steps: so if I were to move say 30% of the music into seperate archival storage, not connected to Roon, and refresh the library database, this might help? Would it be sufficient to disable certain folders which are currently fully in the library, and how do I prompt a refresh of the database (which is presumably different from a regular scan of folders)?
Please either move the archived music out of Roon’s storage paths or disable/remove the relevant folders under Settings → Storage.
After that, go to Settings → Library and run a Library Cleanup to remove orphaned items from the database.
Once cleanup is complete, restart Roon Server and then reopen ARC to allow it to resync.
This should help reduce the database size and improve ARC stability.
We wanted to reach out to see if we could offer any further assistance here. We know it’s immensely frustrating when ARC won’t sync due to the database size. Have you had a chance to try the archive/reduction process outlined above?
Thanks Connor. I haven’t done this yet. (I’ve been using Synology DS audio and Bandcamp while mobile instead). But I’m keen to try. However, can you tell me first: if I disable some of my storage folders, when Roon reduces the size of the database, will it also loose the data it has on the content of those folders (for example number of plays, hearts, tags, etc); and if I add those folders back by re-enabling them, will Roon pick up their location and all that data and continue on as if there was no interruption?
thanks!
As long as you only disable the folder, you won’t lose any data! It’s only when you perform a library cleanup with the disabled folders. If a folder is disabled or the files are missing, and you run “Clean Up,” Roon deletes the metadata for those missing files to shrink the database.
If you re-enable the folders after a cleanup, Roon will treat them as brand-new imports. You will lose your history and manual edits.
That said, I’m not sure how much your database size will shrink when only disabling the folders. It’s definitely still worth a try!
If you haven’t yet, I’d also make a spare backup or two as well.
It doesn’t, I just tested it out. I didn’t expect it to, since, even if the location is disabled, the database entries need to remain for use when the location is enabled again.
