Roon displays 'Waiting for your Roon Server' message on startup (ref#81VKDY)

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· Roon is slow, freezing or won’t start

Roon is slow, freezing or won’t start

· Roon won’t start up at all

Tell us what's going on

· When I try to start Roon I get a message "Waiting for your Roon Server..." Roon is trying to connect etc

Tell us about your home network

· Charter modum, Netgear devices in the house. Everything works perfectly except Roon which will not start. Can run Qobuz directly to Moon Ace and it works fine. When attempting to open Roon on my Mac I can't even access "About Roon" in the Apple menu

What happens when you “Select a different Roon Server” and choose your server (again) from there?

Hello @Tom_Neenan

Since you’re running macOS, the behavior you’re seeing is consistent with the newer, stricter Local Network permission controls in the recent macOS releases.

Please try the following steps:

  1. Open macOS System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network
  2. Make sure Roon and Roon Server are both enabled
  3. Even if they are already enabled, please toggle them off and back on
  4. Fully quit Roon Server from the macOS menu bar / task bar
  5. Reboot your Mac
  6. After reboot, launch Roon again and check if the devices is avaliable again.

Once these permissions are refreshed and the system restarted, your audio devices should reappear.

Please let us know if the issue persists after these steps, and we’ll continue from there.

Did what you suggested. Roon was showing; Roon server was not.

Rebooted and both appeared. I toggled them on and off and restarted.

Clicked on (newly installed) Room icon from finder:

“Connect to your Roon Server”

Hit “Connect”

Clicked “Login” as I already have an account

Got “Welcome Back” window. Chose account based on my email.

Open Roon? Clicked “Open Roon”

Logging in. Got this message:

Screenshot 2026-05-18 at 10.14.55 PM.png

That didn’t work. Declined setting up a new account. Got message:

Redirecting, please wait… which didn’t go anywhere.

Seem to be in an endless cycle where Room wants me to re-sign up.

Hello. Sent a message yesterday. I followed the procedure you suggested. I was asked if I wanted to de-authorize. Please advise. Thank you.

Hi @Tom_Neenan,

We’ve just reviewed your latest RoonServer logs, and the great news is that everything looks perfect now.

The logs confirm that your server successfully passed the authorization stage, updated the database, and is running smoothly. More importantly, it has successfully connected to your network and already discovered your streamer via RAAT.

You should be completely good to go. Enjoy the music, and please let us know if you need anything else!

Thank you for your note. Unfortunately, when I try to open Roon on my laptop, i just see the icon spinning away. No connection. I tried on my iPad and iPhone, which I have also used to control Room and I see a message: Connect to your roon Server and I see a MaBook-Pro icon and a button to “Connect.” When I press “Connect,” I see only the Roon icon not doing anything. I have powered down the modum and both remote devices as well as the QNAP where the various files in my library are located. I am able to open the QNAP and see all the files (which I often access via Roon) but am not able to open Roon on any device. Should I try reinstalling? Thanks for your help.

Sent a message about this yesterday. Roon seems to want to connect with my Mac laptop but what it needs to do is connect with my QNAP.

Any help would be appreciated. I’d really like to get this back to working before the weekend if possible.

Thank you

I’ve sent several follow-ups about this issue which is still not resolved. Is it possible to get further communications toward solving this issue?

Hey @Tom_Neenan,

Thanks so much for the additional information, and I apologize for the long delay in our response.

This is a critical piece of information, it looks like your QNAP hasn’t been online or connected with our servers for almost two weeks.

As a first step here, can you check if Roon Server is actually running on the QNAP?

Go to the QNAP’s App Center and confirm the Roon Server app is running. It may have stopped after the reboot. If it’s not running, start it and wait 60 seconds.

I’m also curious, on any Roon Remote, when you see the “Connect to your Roon Server” screen, look for a “Select a different Roon Server” - does this option show you the QNAP at all?

How is the QNAP connected to your primary router specifically? If you can, I’d temporarily see if you can set up a direct ethernet connection between the two and see if you’re able to recognize the QNAP afterward.

Thank you! :folded_hands:

The message I get is that the Status is stopped. It gives me the option to change database location and an icon to download all files as a zip file or replace the current Roon server. I see no option for “restarting.” I see “Roon Server is installed succesfully on your QNAP. You can connect to your core with a roon capable device over network.”

please advise.

One further piece of info. I can see all the files on my QNAP but when I try to start Roon I see a message: Connect to your Roon Server and I get an icon for my laptop. I do not see my QNAP

It’s very frustrating to me that this has been going on for 2 to 3 weeks without resolution. I see you have absolutely no possible way for me to actually talk with someone. It doesn’t seem to me like this should be such a difficult problem to solve.

Hi @Tom_Neenan,

I sincerely apologize for the delay in getting back to you — this should not have taken this long and I completely understand your frustration.

Here is what is happening: as part of Roon 2.65, we migrated to a newer technical foundation (.NET 10) which requires updated system libraries. The native QNAP Roon Server package relies on the libraries provided by your QNAP’s operating system, and unfortunately your QNAP’s system libraries are no longer meeting the minimum requirements. This is why the Roon Server shows as “Stopped” and cannot start.

The solution is to migrate to running Roon Server via Docker on your QNAP. This is the officially supported path going forward and it is a one-time process. Docker bundles its own libraries, so it works independently of your QNAP’s system version.

We have a step-by-step guide specifically for QNAP here:

Your music files will remain exactly where they are — you just need to point the new Docker container to them. If you have a Roon backup, you can restore it after the migration to recover all your settings and playing history.

Please follow the guide and let us know if you get stuck at any point — we will walk you through it.

Thank you for your help. I followed the guide and everything seemed to go as planned but I cannot seem to access the music folder on my QNAP. The files are definitely there in the Music Station but they don’t show up when I open Roon. Help would be appreciated.

Another week has gone by and my Roon Server remains non-functioning. It seems to me it should be a fairly simple matter to fix it, and has to do with a “path” issue. The RoonServer was installed successfully on my QNAP and I can see all the files in the library stored on my QNAP. Media player works fine when playing files from Qobuz and the like directly from an iPad or iPhone but no luck playing files from the QNAP. Would appreciate your help.

Hello @Tom_Neenan,

I am so sorry for the continued delay in getting back to you. You are completely right- this is almost certainly a simple “path” issue, and you are right at the finish line.

Because Roon is now running inside a Docker container, it is completely isolated from the rest of your QNAP’s file system. It can only see the specific folders that are explicitly mapped to it in its configuration. If that mapping is even slightly off, Roon will just see an empty folder, even though your files are perfectly safe in Music Station.

To get this fixed, we just need to adjust how the container is looking at your drives. Could you please reply with the following two pieces of information?

  1. The exact location of your music files: What is the specific path to your music folder on the QNAP? (For example, /share/Multimedia/Music or /share/Public/Audio).
  2. Your configuration file: Please copy and paste the contents of your docker-compose.yml file (the YAML configuration you used to create the container).
Once I can see how the container is mapped and where the files actually live, I can give you the exact text to update your configuration so Roon can finally see your library.

Thank you for your continued patience!

I’m sorry but I am not skilled at looking at or finding code. This started 25 days ago. It seems to me that a 5 minute Zoom call with you or someone there could have solved it in 25 minutes - probably way less. Anyway, here we are.

The individual files live inside folders inside the QNAP inside DataVol1

/Q-Music Folder

is what I see when I open the control panel/priviledges/shared folders and my music folder which is what google suggested I do to share the path. I don’t think this is what you are looking for.

I have no idea how to find the contents of my docker-compose.yml file. You’ll have to give me more help. I followed the instructions in the guide you sent. I’ll take a wild guess:

name: Build and Publish

on:
workflow_dispatch:
push:
branches: [main]
tags: [‘v*’]
paths:

  • ‘Dockerfile’
  • ‘entrypoint.sh’
  • ‘tests/**’
  • ‘.github/workflows/build.yml’
    pull_request:
    paths:
  • ‘Dockerfile’
  • ‘entrypoint.sh’
  • ‘tests/**’
  • ‘.github/workflows/build.yml’

permissions:
contents: read
packages: write

env:
REGISTRY: ghcr.io
IMAGE_NAME: roonlabs/roonserver

jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:

  • uses: actions/checkout@v4
  - name: Set build date
    run: echo "BUILD_DATE=$(date -u +'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')" >> "$GITHUB_ENV"

  - uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v3

  - name: Generate tags
    id: meta
    uses: docker/metadata-action@v5
    with:
      images: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}
      tags: |
        type=semver,pattern={{version}}
        type=raw,value=latest,enable=${{ !contains(github.ref, '-') }}

  - name: Build image
    uses: docker/build-push-action@v6
    with:
      context: .
      load: true
      tags: roonserver:test
      build-args: |
        VERSION=${{ steps.meta.outputs.version || 'dev' }}
        GIT_SHA=${{ github.sha }}
        BUILD_DATE=${{ env.BUILD_DATE }}
      provenance: false
      cache-from: type=gha
      cache-to: type=gha,mode=max

  - name: Smoke tests
    run: ./tests/smoke.sh roonserver:test

  - name: Runtime tests
    run: ./tests/runtime.sh roonserver:test

  - name: Save tested image
    if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v')
    run: docker save roonserver:test -o /tmp/roonserver.tar

  - name: Upload tested image
    if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v')
    uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
    with:
      name: roonserver-image
      path: /tmp/roonserver.tar
      retention-days: 1

publish:
if: startsWith(github.ref, ‘refs/tags/v’)
needs: [build]
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:

  • name: Download tested image
    uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
    with:
    name: roonserver-image
    path: /tmp
  - name: Load tested image
    run: docker load -i /tmp/roonserver.tar

  - name: Generate tags
    id: meta
    uses: docker/metadata-action@v5
    with:
      images: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}
      tags: |
        type=semver,pattern={{version}}
        type=raw,value=latest,enable=${{ !contains(github.ref, '-') }}

  - uses: docker/login-action@v3
    with:
      registry: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}
      username: ${{ github.actor }}
      password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

  - name: Tag and push
    env:
      IMAGE_TAGS: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
    run: |
      for tag in $IMAGE_TAGS; do
        docker tag roonserver:test "$tag"
      done
      for tag in $IMAGE_TAGS; do
        docker push "$tag"
      done

Another bit of code I found:

services:
roonserver:
image: Package roonserver · GitHub
container_name: roonserver
network_mode: host
environment:

  • ROON_INSTALL_BRANCH=production
  • TZ=America/Los_Angeles
    volumes:
  • /share/Container/roon:/Roon
  • /share/Music:/Music
  • /share/Container/roon-backups:/RoonBackups
    restart: unless-stopped
    logging:
    driver: local

Hi @Tom_Neenan,

Thank you for your patience awaiting a response here. We recognize this is taking longer than anyone would like.

The YAML configuration file you shared looks fine. Your QNAP Container hosting Roon Server is in Host network mode and appears to have been mapped to the correct volume hosting your library.

Logs from RoonServer, however, show that the server has no network pathway to the internet or to local devices. Either QuFirewall is interfering, or the server is relying on the bridge interface instead of the actual ethernet interface.

First, verify that the QuFirewall built into the QNAP isn’t restricting traffic. Go to QNAP Control Panel > Security > QuFirewall and either temporarily disable it entirely or confirm in its activity history that Roon requests aren’t being caught.

Your most recent post contained the YAML configuration we need to edit. Please add this to the configuration file and save it in a text editor:

- ROON_EXCLUDE_INTERFACES=docker0,lxcbr0,lxdbr0

The entire file should look something like this:

services:
roonserver:
image: http://ghcr.io/roonlabs/roonserver:latest
container_name: roonserver
network_mode: host
environment:
 - ROON_INSTALL_BRANCH=production
 - TZ=America/Los_Angeles
 - ROON_EXCLUDE_INTERFACES=docker0,lxcbr0,lxdbr0
volumes:
 - /share/Container/roon:/Roon
 - /share/Music:/Music
 - /share/Container/roon-backups:/RoonBackups
restart: unless-stopped
logging:
 driver: local

We’re happy to clarify any details and we’ll watch closely for your response. Thank you!