Hi all. I have an odd problem. I’ve been using a reconditioned HP notebook as a Roon core in my vacation home for the last year with great success. It’s an Intel i5, 4 gigs ram, 256gb SSD. I use it only for Roon. So a week ago I returned to this location after a six-month absence and the notebook wanted to do the Windows 10 creators update. Roon wanted to update to 1.5. I did them both (Windows first). Problems were immediate:
Roon became very sluggish loading album art from both my external HD library and from Tidal. Sometimes the program froze, requiring a computer restart.
When the notebook screen turned off automatically after 10 minutes with Roon running (not sleep, just monitor dimming) nothing would revive it. The notebook would get very hot and the fan would run. Previously the fan seldom came on. A power off was required to solve the problem. This did not happen when Roon was not running. The monitor would come back with a key press without Roon running, as it should. This also never happened with previous versions of Widows 10 and Roon.
After researching this group, I discovered that some members have solved the slow-loading album art by moving to the 32 bit version of the Roon core. I did so (I had always used 64-bit previously) and album art immediately began loading normally.
However, nothing has resolved the strange problem of the screen-blank lockup of my computer when using Roon. I’ve never seen this before. If I turn off the auto screen dimming and keep the screen on at all times, Roon works like a charm. Unfortunately one of the best things about this notebook in the past was that I had it set to turn off the screen when I closed the cover, but not sleep or power off. This was my version of a “poor man’s NUC,” which worked well as an always-on machine.
So I’m stumped on the screen problem. It seems odd, and it only happens with Roon. I can live with the 32-bit version to get around the album art problem, but would prefer not to live without screen blanking. I’ve also played around with the Roon audio processing and processor core settings, but they make no difference.
Any ideas anyone? Has anyone else experienced this?
Thanks.
I think the first step here is to enable some diagnostics on your account so our technical staff can get some more insight into what’s going on here.
However, before I enable this feature, I’d like to ask for your help ensuring we gather the right information.
First, can you please reproduce the issue once more and note the time at which the error occurs. Then respond here with that time, and I’ll make sure we review the diagnostics related to that timestamp.
Hi Dylan. I did what you asked at 10:08 eastern time this morning. Started Roon core with nothing else running. The notebook screen audio-dim was set in Windows for 10 minutes. Therefore,the screen blanked at 10:18 and the computer became unresponsive. I left it turned on until about 12:50 pm to make sure the usual happened—notebook remains unresponsive, gets very hot and the fan runs at high speed. As I mentioned earlier, only Roon produces this result. Please let me know what other troubleshooting might help you out.
Now that I have the timestamps, diagnostics have been enabled on your account. The next time your Core is active a diagnostics report will automatically be generated and uploaded directly to our servers
Once that’s been received, I’ll be sure to update this thread and pass the diagnostics over to the team for further analysis.
Thanks, Dylan. I’ll activate the core again now. Should I recreate the problem again on this activation, or can I run it without screen blanking (which avoids the computer freeze up)?
I wanted to reach out because I’ve been keeping an eye on our servers, waiting for the aforementioned diagnostics report.
For some reason it is not reaching our servers, even after I tried re-enabling diagnostics on your account. I also ran a quick test and I was able to submit a similar report from my setup here, so something else is going on.
So we can move forward, I was hoping for now you could use the directions found here and send us over a set of logs using a shared Dropbox link. We will need logs from your Core machine.
Before grabbing the logs, can you please reproduce the issue once more and note the time at which the error occurs. Then respond here with that time, and I’ll make sure we review the diagnostics related to that timestamp.
Hi Dylan. I just recreated The problem again for you. I turned the computer and the Roon core on at 2:02 PM Eastern time today with the screen blanking set to kick in at 2:12 PM. The computer locked up, as usual, at that time. If you do get the error log please ignore anything that says my music library was disconnected today. I had disconnected the external drive with the my music library to copy the files to another machine. The problem occurs with or without that drive and music library present. I suppose that rules out anything related to that my external drive.
I will be able to send you logs, but I not until later today. I’ll let you know after I do.
There is only one other thing I can think of that might be relevant. I live in both Brazil and Canada, and just before this started happening I had switched my Roon core and login to this notebook in Canada. A few days before (earlier than May 7) it would have been signed in on another notebook in Brazil. However, I’ve been doing that for a couple of years and it has never caused any problems.
I happened to bring the Brazil notebook to Canada with me. So if you need me to test on another notebook to see if the same thing happens. I would be happy to do that. I know for certain that it previously worked fine with the latest Windows 10 updates and Roon core 1.5 That might help you diagnose whether the problem is with my account or with the computer.
Hey @Toolio - Thank you for your patience as this has been investigated by our technical team.
After speaking with them regarding this, I have some next steps I would like to recommend.
First, can you try reinstalling the Roon application (not the Core)? After doing so, do you still experience this behavior?
I happened to bring the Brazil notebook to Canada with me. So if you need me to test on another notebook to see if the same thing happens. I would be happy to do that.
In the event that the above does not resolve this behavior, doing the above test would certainly be a great data point. If you switch to your other machine do you have the same experience?
Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by reinstalling the “Roon application.” The choices seem to be:
Roon
✓Control ✓Core ✓Output
Roon Server
✓Core ✓Output
Roon Remote
✓Control ✓Output
Roon Bridge
✓Output
Regarding the other notebook, I had used it as a core just after Roon 1.5 was released in early May. There were no similar problems. I can’t test it at the moment because it is with my wife, who is travelling for a few days.
Sorry, I should have been more clear above. You’ll want to reinstall Roon, but you don’t want to delete your database when doing so. As long as you do not delete your database you can reconnect to it when you reinstall Roon.
I’ve done what you suggested. Unfortunately the notebook is behaving in pretty much the same fashion as before. I have noticed something interesting, though. I might not have discovered this previously because I didn’t try it. If I minimize Roon before the computer screen goes blank, the computer and Roon will recover. However, while the screen is blank the computer continues to heat up and the fan runs. If I leave Roon visible, it will never recover from a blank screen. The odd thing is that even in the minimized setting from which it will recover (Roon minimized), the notebook seems to go into high-processor-use mode, making the computer very hot, as soon as the screen blanks. This is with no clients using Roon and audio analysis turned off. If I leave Roon on-screen and turn off screen blanking, it happily sits there with less heat and less fan use. In fact, much of the time the fan doesn’t run. As I said when I started this thread, a few iterations of Roon and Windows ago, this notebook behaved perfectly normally with the Roon core. I hope this information helps.
Thank you for your patience as we continue to investigate this!
The technical team is still looking into this behavior and was hoping we could get some more data to use in the investigation.
May I ask that you please reproduce this behavior once more and make note of the times that it occurs?
If I minimize Roon before the computer screen goes blank, the computer and Roon will recover. However, while the screen is blank the computer continues to heat up and the fan runs. If I leave Roon visible, it will never recover from a blank screen. The odd thing is that even in the minimized setting from which it will recover (Roon minimized), the notebook seems to go into high-processor-use mode, making the computer very hot, as soon as the screen blanks.
Can you also reproduce the above and make note of the time as well? The team would like to review both instances of this in the report.
Once you’ve reproduced and made note of the timestamps, please respond back to me with your timestamps along with a zipped copy of the logs. Once I have those I’ll pass it along to the team!
Out of frustration, I’ve changed my core to another notebook, also an HP. It works fine, although I had to update the graphics driver to get album art to load.
I’ll be happy to switch back to the old machine in the next couple of days and run the tests.
Just one question. Do I need to create separate log files for each of the two tests or just one log file after I’ve completed both tests?
Cheers,
David
Sorry about the frustrations, but I’m glad to hear that the new notebook is working for you.
You only need to send the logs once for this. Just make sure you note the time for each test and then send that along with the logs and that should be all we need!