I am in month 1 of Roon, so apologies if this can already be accomplished but in searching the feature requests I don’t see anything.
Feature: An optional setting to have Roon ARC buffer ahead in the queue X mb in order to continue playback if internet connection drops. Basically, allow the user to not have to plan ahead by pre-downloading what they are listening to, rather always have an on-the-go buffer that will cover them for some time.
Use case: Listening to an album or playlist during a commute, on the subway for 15 min without internet access; driving and internet drops out for a few minutes here and there., etc. . .
Details: ARC would need to buffer ahead only if connection permits, ideally user could select size of buffer, whether to use wifi / cellular etc. . . Buffer would only work when there are items ahead in the queue, and would be destroyed and re-created whenever the queue changes, or ARC app is closed.
I’m picturing three new options on the settings page: read ahead buffer on/off; buffer size in MB, use cellular data. I don’t think the downloaded songs should be available to the user as they could be removed at any point by the app.
It already does this automatically to some extent. Every so often someone is confused when their ARC does not work on cell networks due to missing port forwarding (but does on wifi) when they leave the house and it continues playing for a while. And of course this is simply a necessity to work reasonably as a mobile streaming app.
Maybe setting a large buffer/cache size manually would be neat (the Qobuz app has this) but as far as I am concerned it should simply cache as much as free space allows (within some reason).
Ah okay maybe it was something else – my experience was being out and about listening to music using cellular data, and when I went on the subway and lost cell service the music stopped. I assumed it wasn’t buffering ahead but I wasn’t paying super close attention maybe I had switched something in the queue just before heading in. You’re saying that it should have been able to keep going for awhile seemlessly after losing the cell connection?
It should, I had this myself in the beginning before I had a working IP address, I could play some tracks that had been cached previously while on wifi. But I forgot how much, maybe it wasn’t long enough for your cell dropout?
You’re right it does so my mistake not a feature request I was playing around with starting an album with wifi off and then switching to airplane mode after a few mins. It seems to buffer up to the next song after the currently playing one in the queue, but not beyond that? I’ll look closer later but in the few times I tried that seemed to be the case.
Seemed to me that it was longer, but if it’s really just one song forward it seems too short, connection gaps can obviously be much longer, and I have 100+ GB available - use it! Seems like a good feature suggestion to me
Hmmm: I found one post in the old closed ARC Testing section and someone said it had cached six songs in Build 40. Someone else said „Hit the underground (which has no signal) from Waterloo to Baker St and was able to continue listening uninterrupted“, same build. Would be weird if it got worse since then but you never know.
I have noticed recently that ARC is not buffering like it used to. This seems to have coincided with iOS 17.2.1.
I used to be able to put an album in the queue and go without internet for 20-30 mins - no issues… ARC had buffered ahead 3 or 4 tracks and you could even go back in the queue to previously played tracks.
But now, as soon as I don’t have 5G or Wifi, music fully stops as my current track comes to an end and all the tracks in the queue are showing as ‘unavailable’ in red.
I was playing around with starting an album with wifi off and then switching to airplane mode after a few mins. It seems to buffer up to the next song after the currently playing one in the queue, but not beyond that? I’ll look closer later but in the few times I tried that seemed to be the case.