Im going on a Trip to China next month for 3 weeks and would love to be able to have access to my entire music library. ARC has worked well for me domestically in the US but this is my first international trip since using Roon and it being China I’m worried about their firewalls.
Is there any recommended steps to keep ARC accessible? Id ideally like one solution to work for both Plex and Roon.
I have a L2TP VPN setup between my NAS and phone, would that be enough to get through or would that be actively blocked?
Thanks in advance!
mjw
(Father! Father! Resist not! Let us destroy the core! Set us free!)
2
Yes, turn off automatic updates for Roon server, and the mobile app for the duration of your vacation.
Both are already off, I’m assuming this is to ensure nothing breaks while I’m gone?
mjw
(Father! Father! Resist not! Let us destroy the core! Set us free!)
5
Some updates require a server reboot, which you may not be able to initiate remotely, or mismatching versions break things. So, it’s best to stay on specific versions when travelling.
Depends on the mood of the great leader on any given day. The Great Firewall is somewhat unpredictable. Ensure that you have ARC downloads on the phone. However, be aware:
I live in China, and I can tell you most of the commercial VPNs available outside of China are usually blocked, the ones I can tell you that work well here are Lets VPN and Astrill VPN, although they are constantly in a cat and mouse game of blocking and bypassing with the Chinese government.
your private VPN should be ok as long as your IPs are not blacklisted or blocked by the Great Firewall.
My personal solution to use ARC here in China is ZeroTier One using IPv6 to be able to connect direct phone to roon server, if I use IPv4 it usually can’t connect direct and will relay through a ZeroTier server making the connection slow and you will have dropouts while listening, this because usually the ISPs here in China will not give you public IPs so you cannot make a direct connection.
So just a heads up, you could set up a ZeroTier One for your Roon server and install it on your phone before travelling just in case.
By the way, you will need a working VPN to be able to connect internationally, nothing works here in China without it, I mean google services and all the media apps like X, Instagram, Facebook, etc. won’t work, Whatsapp is intermittent at best, and only for text, if you want to make calls you will need a VPN.
If you will be here for 3 weeks I recommend you download letsvpn and get 1 month service for like 7 dollars before you travel. It is by far the best working VPN here in China right now.
How about an SD card n your phone. I have a Samsung A55 with a 1tb SD full of FLAC then play through USB Player Pro
Why set yourself up for a complicated dissapointmnet
When I visited China some years back we couldn’t even get GMail . It was great oblivious to the rest of the world. Enjoy the visit it’s a a facinating country
Letsvpn I think is Chinese, so it is specifically a product to bypass chinese firewall, and it is cheaper than most. I have tried ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Windscribe, Astrill VPN over the years, and most of them have a lot of issues connecting at one point or another, usually right before the Communist Government meetings, they crack down on it hard.
The gold standard these last few years was Astrill, but it has been having issues to connect lately, which is why I recommended Letsvpn, it seems to be the one working best right now and it is a lot cheaper than Astrill or the others I mentioned.
Anyway, rule of the thumb from someone who travelled a lot to China until I settled here 10 years ago, have more than one VPN so if one get’s shut down you have a backup.
Also, one more thing just to be clear, you can only have one VPN on at the same time on the phone (at least on my Android phone), so you will either have the one to bypass the firewall to get access to your social media, or you will turn on ZeroTier to listen to music, but not both.
