I got a rude awakening tonight (I have a lifetime membership).
I live in the Caribbean. Recently devastated by Hurricane Irma. I have been without Power and Internet for over 4 weeks. Finally got a generator yesterday and powered up Roon. Enjoyed Roon for a few hours before bedtime.
Returned from work tonight. Fired up Roon and alas, greeted by a Logon screen!
Of course login was impossible as my server was not connected to the internet, though my server and Roon Core was online (available) over my LAN. My guess is that Roon need to validate my membership, perhaps every 30 days or whatever the schedule is.
Ok, maybe a workaround.
I tetthered my phone’s hotspot on my macbook pro and was able to login but then, rightly so, it started looking for my server which of course was no longer available to my MBP as my MBP was on a different network now. So, while still searching for my Roon Core, I changed my connection back to my LAN and nope, Roon went back to the Login screen. So now, no more Roon for me unless I use the very very limited music I have on my MBP.
As if I haven’t suffered enough horror from Hurricane Irma, Roon has decided to add insult to injury. While I understand this is an extra-ordinary situation (no internet for 30 days and counting), you can understand my frustration and pain too. Shouldn’t there be a way to allow users who have paid for a particular service/software for a year (or lifetime) be able to enjoy the software whenever they choose irrespective of circumstances? Before we consider this scenario as highly unlikely, imaging not using Roon for whatever reason for 6 weeks, then the day you choose to run it, you’re having network issues connecting to the internet, then you’re out of luck.
I hope Roon developers can come up with a workaround whereby users are not locked out of Roon simply because they have no access to the internet.
For now, I’ve gone back to MediaCenter 23 which requires no internet validation.