ROON ARC (using with carplay)

[Ralf_Karpa]

Roon Core Machine

Mac Mini 2011 with 16GB RAM and 500GB SSD

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Ethernet connected, iPhone using WiFi house-network

Connected Audio Devices

RoPieee connected through Ethernet. But this issue is using the iPhone XS via WiFi

Number of Tracks in Library

approx. 100000

Description of Issue

I am using roon since 2018. All the time on the above mentioned Mac. It’s not blazing fast, but it does it’s job quite well (playback via RoPieee using Ethernet connection). When ARC was issued, I tried - as many others - to use it, but as I am based in Germany with Vodafone as a provider, I was never able to connect to roon using my iPhone outside my network, so I did not further look into this.

In the last weeks, I was looking for getting some music over to my iPhone which I recently got into my portfolio. Aside from using the iTunes way, I was looking into the ARC software again. I found that my core was showing that I can use it also from outside (see screenshot). However, not true, ARC always reports “slow connection, retry” and nothing happens.

Issue 1: I cannot connect from outside the my home network to roon with ARC

OK, issue probably still not fixed, but I can easily download, listen and after that throw it away. So, I tried to download 4 albums to my phone. This resulted in issue #2.

Issue 2: Slow, very slow… My network does perform well, but it takes ages to download. Several times I had to kill ARC on my phone to get the download process restarted. Finally, after 2h I managed to download 4 albums to my phone.

Now heading into my car and using the carplay option to listen the freshly downloaded music… that was my thought, but, well, nothing happened.

Issue 3: ARC does not play any downloaded music with carplay. It keeps telling me that it’s loading, but after 10 minutes I gave up (see screenshot). Besides this, when not connected to my local network, ARC does not show any album covers.

ARC works when using it as an internal player the previously downloaded albums (so, when connected to my home network). Browsing through my library, selecting albums, playing them, all works fine then (see screenshots).

[daniel]

Hi @Ralf_Karpa,
Concerning your issues with slow download speeds and difficulty playing downloaded music. The Roon team is working on optimizing downloads so you should see some improvement soon. In the meantime, we will activate diagnostics on your account and check into this. When using carplay do you have this issue when using with both Bluetooth and USB

As for your first issue this is a known problem with Vodafone. You can read more about it here. Vodafone Germany w/ ISP-Supplied Modem/Router (Fritz!Box or Touchstone): Ongoing Discussion - #172 by Wokan. However this is an ongoing discussion so you may not find an answer. Here are two possible workarounds that you can try:

1. Request a dedicated/static IPv4 address from Vodafone

2. Investigate whether you can enable full dual stack and disable IPv4 on your network

I hope some of this is helpful.

[Ralf_Karpa]

Hi Daniel,

yes, having the issue with both, USB and BT connection.

I thought it was fixed because the message in ROON states that everything is working fine. OK, if there’s still the issue with Vodafone, I skip the app, so will not use it any further.

I won’t get a dedicated IPv4 (have already tried that and for your second point, I do not understand anything from that (I know what each single word means, but I don’t get the point).

[Michael_Harris]

Hi Ralf as you are not running Roon on Rock you could investigate Tailscale as a solution. It has worked for many users and should allow ARC to work well for you.

Just install and configure the settings on your Mac and your iPhone and you should be good to go.

[Ralf_Karpa]

@Michael_Harris

Tailscale

Thanks, Michael, will have a look into this service.

[daniel]

Hi @Ralf_Karpa,
TailScale is a useful solution, though unofficially supported, that allows for proxy access in situations when the ISP has CG-NAT in place and a static/dynamic IP is unavailable. So it should work for you.

[Michael_Harris]

No problem I had another user who got it working yesterday and has ARC working for the first time.

There are a couple of good informational threads on the forums here if you need them.

[Michael_Harris]

@daniel

though unofficially supported

I always omit that the first post

[Tom_Kramer]

I got an IPv4 from Vodafone for a small upcharge, which also included an upgrade from 100 to 500 Mbit. ARC works fine since then, very happy with both ARC and Vodafone! The whole process took a while though…
I also use ARC in Carplay.