The mini is:
2,3GHz Quad Core intel Core i7
16GB 1600 MHz DDR3.
Mike: Hte library is done analyzing
Hey Morten, I wonder if you are using time machine backups in this setup at all? I found I saved a lot of issues by moving time machines target disks out of band from the main data network. If you temporarily disable time machine backups, does it resolve your problem?
I’ve had the same experience. Roon is buggy & not ready for prime time. I can’t stream Qobuz with any reliability, so Roon was a waste of money.
Gilbert it is fair to say that Roon puts a strain on networks, especially when streaming 24/96 as it is pushing data in multiple directions at the same time (even local Flac files).
I redesigned my home setup as I moved from mp3 and some FLAC streaming, as I could always stream mp3 perfectly and flac would often skip or pause, and I agree it was very frustrating.
Remember with Roon everything is brought in by the Roon server, processed (where asked) and sent back out to the the endpoints in pretty much real-time.
Your Roon server and network has to be up to coping with this and this is where complaints come in.
I still have the occasional skip and pause in my setup but they tend to be occasional now and due to spouse friendly decisions I made to move gear away from the optimal places.
I am not claiming that Roon is perfect in any way, but it requires effort and the hardware setup at the beginning to reap the rewards in enjoyable listening time.
Regards
Mike
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@Michael_Harris have you used any network monitoring tools to examine traffic while Roon is playing? I have and the strain on the network isn’t quite the picture that you are trying to paint. The fact being discussed here is that the Roon software has some bugs that impact reliable connectivity and that is an unavoidable fact. There are users (myself included) that have evidence of this and are waiting for bug fixes from QA. Not everyone experiences them but it is unfair to those that have been frustrated with connectivity problems, crashing processes and memory segmentation faults to pretend that it has to be due to their network not being up to the job.
Before I upgraded my network I did a lot of analysis of the traffic and what I was seeing is that the route my traffic was taking was not optimal and caused issues in dropped traffic.
There are issues as and you are clearly finding some of them, but I think a lot of forum reports are due to underpowered Roon server’s and networks that cannot keep up with the demand
Regards
Mike
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@Michael_Harris a stable 24/96 stream utilizes about 5 Mbps on my network. The stress that it undergoes is if the file isn’t local, in other words if it is on a NAS or streaming provider. With it local you can stream an entire album from beginning to end with no fluctuation in network traffic. When it is not local to the core there is a peak in traffic as each new track starts, that is at the beginning of the individual track and the peak on my system is about 80 Mbps. Once buffered the traffic returns to a stable previous state. These facts don’t explain a lot of the complaints that I see on this forum or what I was experiencing first hand.
@robm that pretty much describes my old setup, first on a Synology NAS shared with Plex and then on a NUC playing from the NAS.
My problem was the track would skip after a couple of seconds or sometimes longer so I recognize the frustration. Rarely happened with streaming though (Nuc next to router and plenty of bandwidth available), so I guess that suggests that maybe a lighter protocol might help with stability.
I put a drive in the NUC and life has been happy since then.
Though the 80Mbs a second seems pretty high and suggests that it is trying to prefetch as much of the song as possible
SMB is not a good protocol (particularly v1 and 2) as it is way to chatty. You do wonder if Roon could create a small NAS app that uses something lighter that can help alleviate the strain
Though I stand by my earlier assertion that some users are running Roon on undersized machines and not following the published setup guides and recommendations and then complaining when things do not work.
The more non technical users that stumble upon Roon in the next couple of years is likely to make this worse as well.
Regards
Mike
@Michael_Harris I understand your point that some users are experiencing issues due to underpowered servers and others have deficiencies with their network configurations but there are most certainly bugs and design considerations with RoonServer that are the root cause of a significant amounts of head and heart ache.
Just as an FYI, Roon does in fact prefetch the entire file in a matter of a few seconds once the track starts. there is no continuous stream from the source. If you implement an external endpoint then the continuous stream is outbound of the server over to whatever device that you have connected to you audio system.
I also agree with your position on SMB, while the implementation I have in my system has the library on a HDD attached by USB I do have other needs in my home for data transfer. Wherever possible I have migrated from SMB to NFS and things appear to be a lot more stable. The one downside of locating your library on a remote device (NAS etc.) is that Roon struggles to see updates to the filesystem. My setup involves local USB attached library with regular backup to networked storage over NFS. This networked storage then serves as the source for my nightly incremental backups to off-site.
@Robem I know that a previous discussion I read, Roon basically said that they were not interested in NFS as SMB is the universal protocol (even though NFS is more efficient).
A full prefetch is fine as long as 1) the bandwidth is available does not break other services, and 2) it does not impact the streaming out of what is going on elsewhere in the system. This might be what I was seeing when I was storing music on the Nas and feeding the NUC. I now similarly to you synchronise the music from my NAS to the secondary internal hard disk in the NUC
Given you good understanding of all this, what issues are you seeing?
Regards
Mike
@Michael_Harris my biggest concern is seeing all of these posts regarding dropouts, crashes and other disruption in people’s enjoyment. There is always a rash of posts that come and place blame on the hardware or network implementation and full on denial in the forums with statements like “well there are thousands of users that are totally happy” while there is concrete evidence of failure in the Roon software. Specifically, in my case, when 667 was released I started to have music dropouts, along with simultaneous remote and endpoint disconnects. Examination of the logs in Ubuntu quite clearly show memory segmentation errors, RoonServer process crash and subsequent restart. I have had to implement a workaround to keep Roon stable. In my first hand experience, the support model offered here on this forum isn’t able to keep up with the demand and is certainly not scalable for future growth unless there is some serious investment in human resources. I predict a fundamental change in this support model in the coming future. Having the general public weigh in on support needs isn’t a viable solution especially when the issue is nearly always (and sometimes wrongly) attributed to poor infrastructure implementation.
I don’t disagree with that and people are getting annoyed when they don’t get their messages replied to quickly or think that the person trying to help them works for Roon when often they don’t.
There are many helpful people in the forums who offer help and support at all sorts of hours. These are generally just trying to pass on their knowledge and help other users.
I commented in one of my previous posts that with an influx of new user’s this is likely to get worse and I think Roon needs to build a larger team to support these additional users as many won’t have the networking knowledge required.
Based on Roon being a DotNet app, it is by it’s nature reliant on runtime libraries that have been in Flux and constant development over the last couple of years.
Maybe Roon should have reduced their supported platforms to help keep support manageable, but that is difficult to follow through with.
Here’s hoping 1.8 is a big step forward.
Regards
Mike
Roon drives me nuts with drop outs too! Tidal always loads slowly and drops out. whereas the actual Tidal works fine. My albums, especially DSD hardly ever play to the end. I can see that Roons argument is that the roon system is data CPU intensive thus it doesn’t have time to play music… did I get that right. In all honesty, going of the tangent, the actual Tidal radio is exceptionally good. So, why Roon spends all resources on reinventing the wheel. Just focus on playing Audiophile quality music and use Tidal for streaming
This is very probably a local networking issue. “Loads slowly” is a difficulty acquiring the data in time. Check your network, upgrade your router and/or core, and the experience will no doubt improve.
Maybe, there are a whole rash of other things that it could be though. Roon has reliability issue right now, most notably since 667 was released.
Think what Roon is passing from the core to the end point or the control app
The amount of data is quite high and Roon has always exposed weakness in local networks.
Check out each thread dealing with dropouts and connection issues they virtually always finish up as a network issue.
My system is Ethernet with a non specialist (TP Link Archer D3) router , I can’t recollect ever hearing a dropout On the other hand I run a WiFi/Bluetooth system in the kitchen which has connection issues all the time so I rarely use Roon on it.
If WiFi works for you, as for some users, then good luck.
Good networking is key, Roon is simply very demanding, if your network isn’t up to it you are in for pain 
24/96 is about 5 Mbps to the endpoint.
Plus metadata etc , 5mb is just the music, look at your iPad, or whatever, where does that “picture” come from , and how much data does the highly graphical data represent?
The Core by WiFi
Yes 5 mb is not a big ask but in some cases, fortunately few, it’s too big an ask or we wouldn’t see all these issues
PS I am not a raving Roon fanboy , some aspects irritate the hell out of me too, these are beyond my control. A stable network isn’t
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No, that is what the core is passing at steady state while playing a 24/96 file.
Ok then why are there so many network issues if all user network are rock steady ?