Roon Bridge does not work on headless machine[solved]

Original Roon Core software is running on my office desktop. MacBook Air has the RoonRemote software (without core running). Added RoonBridge to basement office computer. It shows up on Roon: About page. However, it does not allow audio setup. It does not even show up under Audio Setup.

However, when installing RoonServer on this basement office headless computer, it does show up under Audio Setup. Why may this be? Hopefully, RoonLabs provides a detailed explanation of how to setup a system.

Thank you.

Hi Abe,

Each Roon installation requires a Core and at least one Control and Output. The Knowledge Base Architecture page contains a good explanation of those functions.

The main Roon program running on your office desktop is configured as a Core and performs all three functions.

You are also running Roon on your MacBook and when Roon is running otherwise as a Core it is called a Remote (because it controls the Core from another computer). So far this is all straightforward.

You have then referred to a third computer, being the Office basement computer. As I understand it you may want to set up that basement computer as a headless RoonServer and then have both your Desktop and MacBook operate as Remotes.

You can do that either by:

  • freshly installing RoonServer on your basement computer (see instructions here ) and then pointing the Desktop and MacBook to that library; or

  • transferring the existing Roon database from your Desktop to the basement computer (see instructions here) and then converting to Roonserver.

You would do the first if your database did not contain anything you wanted to save as it is the simplest. If, however, you want to preserve your Roon database then you would do the second.

RoonBridge is a lightweight program that exposes the Outputs of a device as Roon network zones. It doesn’t appear to be relevant to the architecture you are thinking about.

Thank you for the quick response.

My goal was to install RoonBridge on the basement computer to simply use it as a remote output to my AV system which resides in the same rack. Roon Bridge did not allow audio/output setup when I installed it. It did show up under ABOUT:ROON. When I installed RoonServer it showed up on my Office Desktop and Macbook.

Is there way to see where the core is and the other units acting as remotes?

The first link does not work in your post. It points to a page where an article has not been written yet.

Thanks for your help.

Hi Andy,

This sounds almost exactly like this.

Cheers, Greg

Thanks Abe,

I’ve fixed the broken reference, thanks for that.

I understand now what you are trying to do and installing RoonBridge on your basement computer should enable you to see zones on that computer from both your desktop and MacBook.

I’m sure @vova and @mike will want to find out why RoonBridge isn’t doing that and they will pop in to the thread and may ask you for logs while they investigate.

Did installing RoonServer on the basement computer allow you to access the outputs on that computer from the desktop and MacBook in the way that you wanted ? If so, then lets not mess with something that is working. If not, then we may have to think of a workaround until any problems with RoonBridge are sorted.

The simplest way to tell which computer is running the Core is to look at the watched and organised folders. A folder on the Core machine will be the default folder until other folders are explicitly added.

It’s possible this was fixed in Build 128 @Abe_Abrahamian, but let us know if you’re seeing otherwise.

Thanks!

Looks like this issue was fixed. Roon Bridge is now working on the client computer.

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