Pakedge RK-1 Router; Nucleus is hardwired to Ethernet via a QNAP QSW-1208-8C-US 12 Port Unmanaged 10GbE Switch Twelve SFP+ with Shared Eight 10GBASE-T Ports
Connected Audio Devices
MSB Premier DAC, hardwired Ethernet
Ayre QX-8 DAC, hardwired Ethernet
Chord Qutest DAC, connected via USB to 27" iMac
Chord Hugo 2 DAC, hardwired Ethernet
Number of Tracks in Library
73,419 tracks
2,994 albums
Description of Issue
I primarily use Roon ARC when driving in my car and I’m using the Apple CarPlay interface.
Virtually everytime I get into the car and open Roon ARC in Apple Car Play, my albums, my most recently played, etc., are missing – no album covers appear, just empty squares. In order to make ARC work, I need to restart my iPhone. When I do this, then Roon ARC homepage appears and I can play music. Occasionally I need to restart the iPhone twice (I have a iPhone 14 Pro Max running the most current operating system) in order to play music through ARC in my car. Why is this? And, I can’t believe that others don’t also experience this issue. This problem always occurs when I’ve added new albums to my library.
I primarily listen to classical music. When I select specific movements of a work, or for example specific arias in a complete opera, ARC always takes me to the beginning of the work/opera, never to the movement that I’ve selected. Why is this? Seems to be a software problem.
Thank you for the report and for your patience. The team will certainly do our best to investigate what technical issues might be underpinning your recent difficult experience with ARC and mitigate these symptoms.
Let’s tackle connectivity issues and CarPlay first. There have been several recent regressions surrounding Daily Mixes and artwork loading, particularly when changing connectivity from WiFi to 4G/5G on the phone. If you’re leaving the house and loading local content that has yet to sync with ARC, it’s possible you’re encountering the latter known issue. Does the issue you describe occur if you open ARC without leaving your home WiFi?
Regarding your issue with multi-part compositions, are you able to provide an example? ARC and Roon both taxonomize movements as a subsidiary object to a single performance - thus, if you queue Beethoven’s Piano Sonato No. 13 in E-flat Major, for instance, you will queue all four movements and playback will automatically start at the first. But if you queue the fourth movement specifically, then playback will start at the fourth.
Let me first say that since I posted my message I have found multiple postings in Roon Community about problems displaying cover art in CarPlay. For me, however, it’s not only an issue that I can’t get cover art to display in CarPlay; when this occurs, I’m also not able to access any of my local or streamed (through Qobuz or Tidal) content. In other words, I can’t use ARC to play music using CarPlay.
You asked about connectivity issues first. Again, since my post, I’ve had the problem I describe recur almost every time I use my car – the solution is to restart my iPhone. Sometimes I need to restart it twice before I can resolve the problem. Again, others in the Community have cited this problem as well.
“If you’re leaving the house and loading local content that has yet to sync with ARC, it’s possible you’re encountering the latter known issue. Does the issue you describe occur if you open ARC without leaving your home WiFi?”
Not quite sure I’m clear about what you’re asking, but I’ll give you an example: I just downloaded an album today and just this minute (in responding to your question), I opened ARC on my iPhone (using WiFi connection) and within 10 seconds, ARC updated and showed the new downloaded album under Added. And I’m also able to play the album using the ARC app connected via WiFi.
It’s when I go into my car that the problem with no covers appearing begins. Are you asking whether the problem appears in my car when I’m in my garage and ARC is still connected via WiFi? That I don’t know about, but I can tell you that within a minute or so of leaving my house, if I click on ARC in CarPlay, I can’t access/play any of the albums (no covers appear – and when I click on a blank cover, nothing plays) – and this requires me to restart the phone. That usually solves the problem, but not always. Sometimes a second restart is required.
As for the problem about not being able to play individual movements (or arias if it’s an opera) of a larger work of music: I know that the problem exists with local content on my Nucleus. What I’m not sure is whether the same problem exists if I’m streaming something through Tidal or Qobuz using ARC. I can check that and let you know. And as I explained above, I can access and play individual movements of local content on my Nucleus using the ARC iPhone app connected via WiFi. So I believe there is a problem here – again having to do with CarPlay.
Thanks so much for your help – very much appreciated.