Roon consistently dropping internet radio

[Thor_Legvold]

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

QNAP TS-451
Firmware 4.3.6.0993
Celeron J1800 2.41GHz
16GB RAM
Roon Server 1.6 (build 416) stable

The Roon Database is on a USB3 SSD, the library itself is on the RAID.

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)

Apple Extreme 5th generation 5Ghz
Software Version 7.8.1

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

Mytex Brooklyn Bridge, WiFi connection (Roon Ready)

Description Of Issue

Play Internet radio, after anywhere from 2-10 minutes Roon stops playing, with an error message that “the station’s address may have changed, or may be temporarily unavailable”.

I tried with a number of the stations I listen to most often, it was the same for all of them (all AAC 44.1/48kHz and 24bit).

While it used to happen infrequently in my old apartment (where the NAS/Core was on a different floor of the building than the Mytek), it was seldom enough that it never posed any real issues. For the most part it was rock solid for hours at a time.

In the new apartment, with the NAS/Core and Mytek on the same floor, on either side of a thin gypsum wall, it drops out constantly, to the point where it’s almost better to play the station in a browser on laptop speakers (and where the station doesn’t drop out!).

Both apartments have Spectrum Internet, download and ping speeds are great, no other connectivity issues. This seems to be a Roon issue, and is pretty frustrating.

[john (John Iburg)]

Hello @Thor_Legvold,

First, it should be noted that your QNAP does not meet our minimum requirements for running Roon. According to PassMark, the Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge released in 2014 (our minimum requirement) has 4x the CPU performance of the Intel Celeron J1800. I can take a look at a few things to see if there’s anything obvious that may explain the issues you are seeing, but at end of the day this is an unsupported setup and we cannot guarantee the performance of Roon on under-spec’d systems.

Let’s start enabling diagnostics on your account so that we can take a closer look at this issue. The next time this behavior occurs, please respond in this thread with the local time so that we can request logging information around that time period.

Additionally, it would be helpful to know the following:

A) Using the QNAP as the Roon Core, are you able to play internet radio to the System Output zone of a Mac or PC without issue?

B) If you deauthorize your QNAP core and run your Roon Core instance on a Mac or PC, do you see the same behavior when you play to the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge zone?

-John

[Thor_Legvold]

Hi John,

thanks for your reply. I bought the NAS long before I bought ROON. As far as I can tell, QNAP offers only a very few, very pricey units offering an i3 CPU, overkill for home use.

How do I enable diagnostics? I don’t see any obvious settings in Preferences.

I’ll try playing through the laptop speakers audio zone instead of the Mytek and let you know how it goes.

Not sure about the last suggestion. Do you mean uninstall it from the NAS and install the core itself on the laptop and play from there?

Thanks,
Thor

[Luke23]

Yes he does mean installing Roon on another machine, but you do not have to uninstall it on the NAS, just selecting the new core will disable the old one (and vice versa when you want to go back to the NAS).

[noris]

Hi @Thor_Legvold,

I’ll try playing through the laptop speakers audio zone instead of the Mytek and let you know how it goes.

Yes, please do let us know if this works successfully as this will indicate weather this behavior is endpoint specific or Core specific.

Do you mean uninstall it from the NAS and install the core itself on the laptop and play from there?

As Luke noted, you will not need to uninstall Roon from the NAS, simply un-authorizing the QNAP would allow you to use the laptop as a Core. You should be presented to a page similar to the following when setting up Roon on your laptop:

Note: Just as a precautionary measure, I would highly suggest making sure that you have a Backup saved somewhere safe of your QNAP database. Switching Cores should not have any ill effect but it’s better to be on the safe side

How do I enable diagnostics? I don’t see any obvious settings in Preferences.

We can do this from our end. Please let us know the exact local time + date in your country when you next observe this issue and the streaming link when the issue occurs (e.g. at 11:41PM on 8/27/19 internet radio dropped off while I was playing station ABC with a streaming link of XYZ).

Thanks!

[Thor_Legvold]

Hi,

the problem has come and gone intermittently, however every time I’ve seen it happen and switch to the BIA in my MacBookPro, it streams without any dropouts or issues. Switch back to the Mytek and it disappears after a while, seems random. Then there are times when everything is stable and seems to work perfectly for days or weeks.

The Mytek has the latest firmware update, is on the same network in a room next to the one with the WiFi hub and has full signal.

What now?

[noris]

Hi @Thor_Legvold,

The next step would be the one listed above, please provide this info when possible:

Please let us know the exact local time + date in your country when you next observe this issue and the streaming link when the issue occurs (e.g. at 11:41PM on 8/27/19 internet radio dropped off while I was playing station ABC with a streaming link of XYZ).

Thanks!

[Thor_Legvold]

Hi,

Roon is going nuts now. Between 18:00 - 18:15 Pacific Time on 08.11.19 internet radio kept dropping off playing station KUTX with a streaming link of source AAC 44.1 24bit 2 channel 52kbps to Mytek Brooklyn Bridge.

Let me know if you need more info.

I have an older Mac Mini (Early 2009, 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM), would that be better than the NAS to host Roon? My biggest issue is dropouts, and not being able to stream any audio without dropouts and skips, from CD quality (44.1/16bit) up to DSD.

Would it be better to just run an ethernet cable from the NAS to the Mytek?
This is really frustrating, as I’m not really getting any value for the money I paid for Roon.

[noris]

Hi @Thor_Legvold,

Thank you for letting me know those timestamps, I have gone ahead and enabled diagnostics mode for your Core and what this action does is automatically upload a set of logs to our servers for analysis.

I am looking over the timestamp you mentioned now and I do see the issue, but it is not clear what triggered it. It could either be a Core, Networking or Endpoint issue.

I suggest that we take a look at all 3:

1. Can you try moving your Roon Core over to the Mac Mini? While it still does not meet the minimum requirements, it would allow us to confirm if the issue occurs across two Cores and provide a useful data point.

2. We have often found that Apple routers provide unsatisfactory performance when compared to other types of routers, as mentioned in our Networking Best Practices guide. We should test the Mac Mini as a Core first, but I did want to mention that it is possible that the networking gear is not up to par here.

3. You mentioned that your Mytek Brooklyn Bridge is on WiFi. Can you please check to see if the behavior is the same with it connected via Ethernet? Also, has the dropout issue occurred on any other endpoints or has it been limited to the Brooklyn Bridge?

[Thor_Legvold]

Hi Noris,

I’m going to try running off of the Mini, and I also have a newish Mini I can try as well. Haven’t had a chance earlier, been too busy.

Roon installed fine on the Mini, but it isn’t clear to me how to migrate my existing setup and library (all on the NAS, connected via wired ethernet) to the Mini. The app starts and lives in the menu bar, but there’s no GUI. Not sure if I have to configure it from a remote or what.

I find it difficult to understand how streaming 48kbps poses any problem for the network, Roon, the NAS or a Mini, although I can see how that might be a problem at higher resolutions. Can you be more specific about what problems the Apple line of routers has?

Connecting the Mytek directly to the ethernet would be possible, but a pain, and about 25m of ethernet cable (the Mytek and Roon server are on either side of a sheetrock wall inside an apartment, I see full signal strength both on my laptop and the Mytek. Let’s try the Mini first and see what happens.

[noris]

Hi @Thor_Legvold,

The app starts and lives in the menu bar, but there’s no GUI. Not sure if I have to configure it from a remote or what.

This would indicate that you installed RoonServer instead of the “All-in-one” version of Roon with an interface, you can re-download the full Roon package from our Downloads Tab.

it isn’t clear to me how to migrate my existing setup and library (all on the NAS, connected via wired ethernet) to the Mini.

Our Migration Knowledge Base Article provides a good overview regarding this, but you would essentially need to create a Backup of your current Roon database and transfer it over to the Mini.

You should be able to connect a USB drive to your NAS, set that as the backup location and then restore the backup to your Mac Mini.

Connecting the Mytek directly to the ethernet would be possible, but a pain, and about 25m of ethernet cable (the Mytek and Roon server are on either side of a sheetrock wall inside an apartment, I see full signal strength both on my laptop and the Mytek

I understand that it would not be the most convenient, but it would provide us some useful information. Do let me know how it goes with changing the Core and we can take a look at this aspect next.

Thanks!

[Thor_Legvold]

Due to a variety of reasons I went out and upgraded my wifi router. Just got it installed and configured, fired up Roon to test, and am streaming 2xDSD to the Mytek without any dropouts or stuttering.

While I’ll reserve final judgement until I’ve had more time to try things out, it looks like the upgraded router has solved my connectivity/stability issues.