ifi Zen Stream (wifi)
Modi Multibit 2 via USB on mac mini
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3 running RoPieee 2022.11.2 (0661)
Number of Tracks in Library
25618
Description of Issue
Roon crashes frequently, about 4 or 5 times this evening (between 6:45 and 7:30 pm EST).
I’ve been sending music to my ifi Zen which will play for a few minutes then stop, when I go to the computer the Roon app is frozen and I have to force quit to restart it.
The latest crash around 7:25 pm took 4 or 5 attempts to restart Roon, the restarts froze again and I have to go through repeated force quit and restarts to get it back up and running.
I’ve had this happen a few times listening directly on the mac mini and also a few times listening to the Pi/RoPieee, but it seems to happen most often using the iFi Zen stream.
I’d been running this same combination on Roon 1.8 and earlier for several years with no issues, but it’s getting increasingly unusable with Roon 2.0.
I’m sorry to hear about your issues. I think we can get around this issue though. Are you by chance getting a crash report from MacOS when this happens? If so, can you share it here for me?
There are two potential workarounds here. Destroying Roon on the Mac and rebuilding, or moving you over to Roon server for Mac. I’ll list the steps for both below but would still like to hear from you on the question of a crash report.
Roon server install. Roon server is a headless core solution that still allows you to use Roon on the Mac and other remote instances to control your Roon setup but without having to leave the Roon UI open.
Overview of Roon Server
Roon Server download
Easy steps:
Back up your database.
Go to Roon>Settings>General and logout of the core.
Install Roon Server for MacOS from the link above.
Once installed, you’ll see a Roon icon on the top menu bar. Click it and select launch at startup.
Reboot.
Open Roon and select the new instance of a core.
Import your last backup and test.
Please let me know if you have any questions surrounding my response and by all means, give me an update when done!
I’ve tried reinstalling Roon first. After the reinstall I restored the database from the back-up, restarted, and Roon froze again during the start-up and I had to force quit and restart again to get it running, so it doesn’t appear the reinstall has fixed things.
I have a zip file with some of the problem reports I’ve been sending to Apple, including one from the freeze after the re-install. What’s the best way to share the file, it’s a little over 2 MB?
I just uploaded 2 zip files, one is a zip of the Roon Logs folder, the other is a set of problem reports from multiple instances where I had to force quit the Roon app after it froze.
Hope they can help, let me know if you want me to send anything else. I still have the “old” Roon logs from before the reinstall.
Thank you for your upload. I’ve found a ticket for the issue and attached your community report/crash report to the ticket.
While we figure some of the subtleties out, have you had the opportunity to try Roon Server? It’s been a solid workaround for those with similar situations.
I’ve not had a chance to look at Roon server yet, I’ve been busy with a work project since late last week, hope to finish up in a day or so and hope to have time to look at it this weekend.
I’ve installed Roon server, but it’s flaky. After the reboot and restarting Roon, I got an error that the Roon app couldn’t connect to the new core.
I rebooted a second time, verified Roon server was running, started Roon and it couldn’t connect to the server, I checked the server status in the top menu bad and it say something like “Roon Status: Not Responding”.
Did another reboot, verified the server was running, and was finally able to get Roon to connect to to the core.
It seems to be working now, but it was not a smooth process and doesn’t seem to be fully stable, hopefully it gets better.
It looks like I’m having similar issues with Roon server. Just tried to connect from one of my other devices using Roon Remote on my phone, the remote wouldn’t connect. When I checked the server status on my mac mini, is was ‘Error’ then ‘Not Responding’.
Well that’s too bad. I was hoping this was going to be a quick and easy thing to address.
If you would, please take a look at System Preferences, Network, and give me a screen shot of what you see there. Screenshots on a Mac are super easy too. Shift>command>4 then highlight the area you want to screenshot. It should save to your desktop.
I wish there was a way I could look at pre-Ventura system preferences. What I am looking for is filters and firewall settings and can’t remember exactly where that is in prior OS versions. Can you look for those items and let me know what you find?
Under settings>General, what does it show as your core?
I found them under Security & Privacy, Firewall. I have the firewall turned on and checked the apps that were allowed to accept connections. Roon was there, but not Roon Server, so I added that:
I did a quick test with my iPhone and iFi Zen stream after adding Roon Server, it played for a few minutes, then the iPhone lost the connection to my core, and the core was showing the ‘error’ and ‘not available’ messages for a bit.
Here’s what I’m showing for the selected Roon core:
One thing I’m seeing, using the Roon app directly on my mac mini seems to be generally stable, but using anything remoter (iPhone or iPad to control, iFi Zen Stream, Pi running RoPieee, etc) has the core crash frequently.
In looking through diagnostic logging, there are network connectivity errors in almost every category. Connecting to devices on the network, connecting to Roon account servers, connecting to time servers, and connecting to endpoints. There are several instances of all of these and when it happens, it’s the Mac that stops talking to things. There’s nothing in the logging that indicates a crash or hang outside of the sudden ending of logging.
A few suggestions in order of relevance. Test things after each item is tried:
Stealth mode should be disabled. It could be the source of all of the connection issues and possibly the source of the crashing/hanging.
Set your router to Google or Cloudfare DNS. Google is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Cloudfare is 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1.
Temporarily disable the firewall on the Mac to test.
