Roon Arc 'Keep Alive' Feature

I have set up Roon Core on a Mac, and am currently testing Roon Arc.
An issue I faced was that port forwarding would time out every 10 minutes,
requiring a Roon Arc Reset to resume IOS connectivity from an external cellular network.

I was able to work around this on my Mac by setting up a CRON job that
perform a Roon Arc reset every 5 minutes. My issue, however, is that I’d
like to migrate my Roon Core to a Nucleus, but I understand that I will be
unable to access terminal & perform any Linux-based Roon Arc reset scripting on the Nucleus.

Are there any “Keep Alive” switches in Roon Arc that I can use to refresh the
port forwarding via a Roon Arc Reset?

Background:
I am currently testing Roon Core (Version 2.0 Build 1455) on a Mac.
My ISP is Verizon; I have a Verizon CR-1000A router.
The Roon Arc installation is using the default configuration for port forwarding in my router.

@Tom_Delaney, Roon ARC timing out is not typical behavior on either Roon Server or iOS. Can you describe your iOS system (iPhone model, iOS version, anything else running on it that should be noted), and if there is anything on your Mac Roon Server, including sleep functions and your home network?

Robert,

I appreciate the reply.

iPhone iOS v. 17.6.1 (iPhone 13 Pro Max)

Roon Core (Version 2.0 Build 1455) on a Mac.
Configured with static IP address & default port for Roon Arc port forwarding.

Mac is iMAC Late 2013 3.2Ghz Quad-Core Intel i5, 32 Gb Ram
Running Big Sur 11.6.5
Nothing else running on machine that I can detect that might block the port or interrupt processing.

My ISP is Verizon; I have a Verizon CR-1000A router.
Confirmed proper port forwarding rules consistent with default Roon Arc configuration.

Tested same core at vacation house on Cablevision Optimum Router – no port forwarding issues

I found at home with Verizon router that after 10 minutes of inactivity, my IOS device over cellular could not connect to the Roon Server, unless I reset the Roon Arc in Settings.

I then added this cron script to my Mac, and it resolved the timeout issue:
Script:

#!/bin/bash  (roon_arc_reset.sh)
curl -X POST http://localhost:9100/refresh

Cron refresh every 5 minutes:

*/5 * * * * /Users/{user_path}/roon_arc_reset.sh

I am looking for a more elegant solution for a permanent Nucleus server running through my Verizon Router.

Thanks again for your help.

Not sure what is the issue. Verizon’s FiOS network may be doing something (they tend to be more restrictive in their network management than the cable companies). Other users using FiOs have not reported the same issue, it could be combination of the age of your Mac/MacOS and their home router (or upstream network).

It may be worth putting in a Support request to Roon here Support for them to check your logs.

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My goal is to migrate to to a Nucleus server.
Trying to troubleshoot performance on a ten-year-old mac
would not be a valuable use of the community’s time.

If I encounter similar problems with a Nucleus, I will open a new topic.

Thanks again!

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If you are using a Verizon Router, are you doing an automated port forwarding using UPnP, or, setting up the port forward manually with UPnP turned off on the router.

I have found that Verizon can reset it’s own UPNP information sometimes, so, if you haven’t try turning off UPNP on the Verison router and setting up the port forwarding manually.

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Big Dan,

Thanks for your reply.

I’ve tried both the Room automated setup (UPnP) and also a clean setup where I used basic port forwarding with the standard Roon port and my server’s static ip address. Both approaches yielded the same results: I can only consistently support Roon arc when I run a cron refresh of arch every 5 minutes.

When I do migrate over to a Nucleus core, I will try the standard installation, and if this does not work, i will then try a to set up a clean TCP port forwarding, as you suggest.
I’ll update this thread then.

One thing I should mention is that I’ve seen the suggestion of “turning off UPnP” in my Verizon router. I have not found an explicit way of doing this, other than removing the forwarding rule that the Roon automated setup created in the Verizon router.

I’ll add to this thread down the road, after I’ve installed & configured a dedicated Nucleus server.

Thanks again for you help,
Tom

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If you.have the G3100

Then this would help.

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Big Dan,

This helped immensely.
I always looked in Network / Firewall; never in Devices for the UPnP switch.

I disabled UPnP and will disable my CRON script to reset Arc.
Then I will see if port forwarding remains active.

If this works; I’ll report back on this thread, as it may benefit other Verizon customers.
Thanks,

Tom

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Closing out this issue:

  • I disabled UPnP on my Verizon Router
  • I set my port fowarding rule on the router manually, using the Roon Arc default port (55000) and the static IP address of my Mac running the Roon Server.
  • I removed my scheduled Roon Arc reset script.

As a result, my Roon Arc no longer times out.
It used to time out every 10 minutes, but disabling UPnP on the Verizon Router did the trick.
I did see this suggested in other threads, but I had difficulty finding the UPnP enable/disable switch. As Big Dan pointed out, this switch was moved in the Verizon router settings from ‘Firewall/Security’ to ‘Devices’.

Thanks all for your feedback.

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@Tom_Delaney, glad @Rugby’s assistace helped stabilize ARC for you.

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Hi Tom,

Glad to have been of help. Enjoy the music!

Cheers,
Dan

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