Roon core on Mac OS crashing a few times per hour

[connor]

Hi @Eric_Olson1,

Thank you for your clarifications. The tech support team has been in communication with Accounts and understand your situation concerning a timeline to resolution for this problem.

First, all Mac crashes related to the known issues contain a ThreadPool Worker line in the summary of the crash report near the top. If you are getting Mas system crash reports that do not contain this line on your Remote Mac, then you are in an unrelated situation that we can investigate further and potentially resolve.

Diagnostics from RoonServer show network instability connecting to your Remote Mac. While this doesn’t explain the crashing, it does explain why the Remote can’t recover and displays the “Looking for Roon Core.” Out of curiosity, is the switch on your Asus router performing any filtering, and do you have multicast enabled?

Diagnostics also show that your Backup location is being actively accessed by Time Machine. If you’re backing up your Roon Backup location with another app, it can interfere not only with the Backup process itself, but other processes in Roon that require access to the same mount or storage location. I strongly recommend disabling Time Machine access on any folders containing your Roon Library or Backups.

Additionally, if you haven’t already, you can try a last ditch effort at setup stability by performing a database refresh.

• Make a Backup of your current RoonServer Database
• Exit out of RoonServer
• Navigate to your RoonServer’s Database Location
• Find the folder that says “RoonServer”
• Rename the “RoonServer” folder to “RoonServer_old”
• Reinstall the RoonServer App from our Downloads Page to generate a new RoonServer folder
• On the Roon Remotes, press “Use another Core” and connect to the new database

[Eric_Olson1 (Eric Olson)]

This is all very unclear.

1. Time machine is NOT running on the Mac running Roon Server
   Time machine IS running on my desktop Mac, but I have no scheduled backups set in Roon, and Roon doesn’t have a backup location. What location are you’re referring to when you say “Diagnostics also show that your Backup location is being actively accessed by Time Machine.”? Just give me a directory and I’ll exclude it.

2. When you are talking about crash reports, I have Roon crashing on the mac Server, and Roon application crashing on my desktop. Which one is subject to the issue that will report “ThreadPool Worker”?

3. Asus router is about as standard a configuration as you can get. I didn’t go in there and just start pushing buttons. I work on networks for a living, and believe me, I don’t want some complicated contraption at home. The only change from stock is whatever the port forward is for ARC.

4. My write-up indicated the server WILL recover, and the application can connect back to it without doing anything on the server. (Quote: “Then in about 30 seconds it restores connection.”).

[Eric_Olson1 (Eric Olson)]

The Console on the Mac running Server shows a steady stream of Crashes, all of them with the following:

Crashed Thread: 67 .NET ThreadPool Worker

[Eric_Olson1 (Eric Olson)]

My workstation running Roon Application also show a steady stream of crashes, all with:

Crashed Thread: 31 .NET ThreadPool Worker

[connor]

Hi @Eric_Olson1,

Allow me to clarify. There are three issues preventing Roon from functioning properly in this setup:

1. Both your desktop Mac (Roon Remote) and RoonServer are experiencing a known crash on MacOS, as you’ve indicated in your screenshots above.
   The only known workaround for this issue is to install RoonServer in place of Roon, which, clearly, has not resolved your issue. It’s for this reason that I recommend attempting to refresh RoonServer - this will clear out any cached data associating your machine with the original install, and may at least temporarily mitigate the crash. Unfortunately, if the database refresh is unsuccessful, there’s no silver bullet - our QA and development teams are hard at work to resolve the issue, but we’ll need additional time.

2. Your network isn’t stable. This isn’t related to the crash, but it’s a potentially resolvable issue and thus worth mentioning. Roon Remotes and endpoints are disconnecting and reconnecting. Stock router settings might not necessarily give you adequate stability for reliable performance on a more complicated Roon network.
   If you haven’t changed any settings in the Asus router, then it’s worth verifying:
   a) whether the router has assigned your ISP’s DNS server or a more reliable DNS server, like Google/Cloudflare/QuadNine.
   b) whether multicast is enabled.

3. On your desktop Mac, the directory to exclude from Time Machine is wherever you have a) installed Roon and b) stored your Roon library. Only the first will be relevant on any machine not running RoonServer.

We’re happy to answer any questions.

[Eric_Olson1 (Eric Olson)]

1. OK. Fingers crossed.

2. I am constantly VPN’d into one or more client offices all day long. This might have an affect on my desktop Mac’s connection to the server, but it does not seem to correlate with Roon crashes or disconnects. This should not affect connections to any endpoints - ZenStream, Poly, etc. Also, I have switched to my iPad for playback control, so that eliminates my workstation VPN connects/disconnects from the equation. Again, my work IS the network, so I would notice if my “network isn’t stable”, at least in a general sense. My DNS servers are Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and OpenDNS 208.67.222.222

3. Do I have a “Library” if I stream only? Where are my settings for streamed albums, playlists, and Live Radio stored? Server? My Mac workstation?

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Eric_Olson1

Do I have a “Library” if I stream only? Where are my settings for streamed albums, playlists, and Live Radio stored? Server? My Mac workstation?

Yes, anything that is here is “your library”, streaming or not:

All settings are saved in your local database (hence why it’s important to have a database backup)

[Eric_Olson1 (Eric Olson)]

Is there a reference forum topic for this ThreadPool Worker crash where progress on a fix can be monitored?

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

Surprisingly the top result by searching for “ThreadPool Worker” and the same one posted 24 days ago further up

Roon 2.0 - Crashing on MacOS due to ".NET ThreadPool Worker" [Ticket In]

Since upgrading to Roon 2.0, my Roon core running on a 2018 8GB Mac Mini constantly crashes, whether or not I am using Roon. I understand there are going to be issues, but this does not seem to me to be an uncommon or antiquated setup. If it is no longer supported, would’ve been nice for the upgrade program to have noticed. Please advise if there is a quick fix, or if I just have to wait until the next patch. Roon Core Machine mac OS Monterey 12.6 Mac mini 2018 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel C…

[Eric_Olson1 (Eric Olson)]

Current status: Applied Roon update offered today, and within an hour the server crashed with the ThreadPool Worker error. I got a few more of the same crashes throughout the day. Not the fix I was hoping for.

On an unrelated note, Roon’s ability to charge for my subscription is working just fine.