Roon Core freezes up

System:
Asus ROG Strix Z370-I 16 GB RAM
w 2.5 TB NVME storage
Core I5 8600K @ 3.6GHz
Microsoft Windows 10 Professional (x64) Build 18362.356(1903/May 2019 Update)
Roon Version 1.6 (build 416) stable(64-bit)

Network:

180Mbps/6Mbps up/down Coaxial (cable) to Asus RT-AC-88U (Gig wi-fi & ethernet)
Core is on ethernet

Devices:

  • 4 USB DACS: Hugo 2, Matrix Quattro II, Airist R-2R, Khadas Tone Board
  • Line out to Massdrop/Koss ESP/95X
  • Note a maximum of 2 devices will be in use at the same time.

Description Of Issue

Core is not stable - runs fine for a week or so, then the UI “freezes”:
Freezes means I cannot access any part of the UI with mouse or keyboard, however it still streams anything that was running; i.e., it does not interrupt existing streams. When this occurs the UI sometimes will be rapidly moving up and down and appear to be “vibrating” - that is the only visual cue it will give. To correct, kill the core by clicking on the “X” (close window) in the upper right of the UI and restart.
[ edited to shorten ]

I have reinstalled the OS 3 times in the last year - these were clean installs, not repairs and the issue continues.

Thanks,
-Steve

In your setup… the question is why? What’s the DHCP lease time? Can you set an address reservation in your router, or use a static address? What other tasks is the core machine up to?

It was a 24 hour lease I just assigned it a static address.
Other tasks - its dedicated, but a windows 10 pro OS, so the usual stuff that’s on it, ~4-6% utilization at idle and maxes out around 25-30% using Roon normally.

  • update - just checked w/ 3 DSD64 streams going to separate devices its between 12-22% utilization - one core as its doing the processing - the others are <10.

Hi @steve_smith1,

When this occurs if you use a different remote device to connect to the Core does that remote also experience these issues? Or is it limited to the Core machine’s UI?

2 Likes

Hi @dylan ,

The windows 10 remote hangs.
IOS remotes just can’t connect - same as if the core was not running.

Don’t know if this is a problem in this case, but as a matter of form you should be using address reservation in your router software rather than assigning a static address.

@xxx,

Clarification: Yes, technically that’s what I did - the router makes the assignment from the reserved address space. No static assigned to the server

I’m not aware that static assignments on servers could cause a problem (other than management). Could you provide an example?

As I am given to understand it, DHCP is unaware of any static addresses that are assigned and can potentially assign the same address to another device opening up the possibility for collisions.

Not sure what you mean by ‘static assignment on servers’.

1 Like

Yes, agreed. DHCP needs to have the static address space set aside (reserved) so that it doesn’t assign in that space.

Assign an IP directly on the server.

Hi @steve_smith1,

You mentioned you are using an Asus RT router, can you please check to see if you have “Enable Multicast Routing” turned on in your router settings? We mention this setting in our Networking Best Practices Guide and may help with the issue.

Hi @noris,

It wasn’t but now it is - I will have to restart a couple of systems to see if it makes a difference - Roon on windows 10 running as a remote is hung and was working last night…

I will get back to you in about 2 hours.

Thanks!

1 Like

Hi @noris,

Missed the 2 hour mark, however, the time was well worth it. Once I made the change (multicast on) then the newly installed win 10 remote on the other server would lose its connection with the core every few minutes for 1-2 minutes. Once reinstalled/rebooted both win 10 applications seem to be doing fine.

[Edit - all was fine until about 2 minutes ago when the win10 remote dropped the connection to the core again for ~10sec. - this a new symptom - any ideas how to deal with it?]

Do you know how assigning a fixed IP and enabling multicast are related to the symptoms I described?

Thanks,
-Steve

Hi @steve_smith1,

Multicast would be related to your Roon Remotes losing connection, it wouldn’t necessarily help your UI freezing up. I would suggest not assigning fixed IP, but rather Reserved IP in the router itself, it seems that you have done this though from your comments above.

Can you clarify how exactly you reinstalled Roon? Did you set the old Roon Database Location aside and start fresh? Or have you restored from a backup each time? I would try setting aside the old database location to see if it helps:

  • Make a Backup of your current Roon Database
  • Exit out of Roon
  • Navigate to your Roon’s Database Location
  • Find the folder that says “Roon”
  • Rename the “Roon” folder to “Roon_old”
  • Restart/Reinstall the Roon App to generate a new Roon folder

Can you give those instructions a try and let me know if it changes anything with regard to the issue?

Hi @noris,

Regarding Multicast, on Asus it is a toggle under IPTV and expects that you will dedicate a dual-wan connection (add another port to the WAN) - I did toggle it on, but did not set up the dual-wan.

DHCP reservation is not a term that is on the UI, rather they allow you to use DHCP across all or part of your address space; you can set aside part of the DHCP space, called, Asus calls this “manual address space” and you can assign IP’s to hosts/mac addresses in this space. The router will then hand out these “manual addresses”.

I did as you suggested, reinstalled both the remote and core win 10 applications according to the steps provided. For now everything is working properly. Previously, I removed both the Roon and RAAT directories before I reinstalled.

I will let you know how things go.

-Steve

Hi @steve_smith1,

Thanks for the update here, glad to hear that things are stable since re-installing the App!
Do keep me posted if the issue still appears to be resolved after a few days, thanks!

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