Roon fails to play tracks after initial seconds (ref#9J6TN9)

Support
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Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· None of the above quite fits

None of the above quite fits

· None of these quite match

Tell us what's going on

· Roon keeps failing to play tracks after first few seconds

Tell us about your home network

· Roon Nucleus1 connected to PS Audio airlens. streaming from qobuz and tidal. Saw previous posts saying it's a Qobuz problem, so i tried with Tidal and have the same problem

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Forgot to mention: i tried reinstalling the roon software and doing an OS update from the nucleus 1 web interface, but that didn’t help

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Hi @martin.cassidy,

Thank you for your post.

Diagnostic logging shows that Roon Server can’t sustain the necessary download bandwidth from the Qobuz and Tidal APIs in time feed the buffer in time for playback.

08/07 18:18:05 [Local 08/07 11:18:05] Warn: FTMSI-B-OE qo/2D36DF6B: poor connection kbps:400.0 (min:1883.0)
08/07 18:18:09 [Local 08/07 11:18:09] Trace: [prebuffer] ready 149940/441000 (34%) @ 0/262 sec

Samples are being requested by the endpoint that it hasn’t received because they’re not downloading fast enough from the internet.

Here’s what we see happening with Tidal playback in logs from your server. It’s the same with Qobuz playback; the download isn’t completing in time to feed the buffer.

08/07 17:40:51 [Local 08/07 10:40:51] Trace: [PS Audio AirLens @ 192.168.68.50:37981] [raatclient] GOT [150] {"samples":23040,"status":"Dropout"}
08/07 17:40:52 [Local 08/07 10:40:52] Trace: [PS Audio AirLens @ 192.168.68.50:37981] [raatclient] GOT [150] {"samples":26880,"status":"Dropout"}
08/07 17:40:52 [Local 08/07 10:40:52] Warn: [airlens] [zoneplayer/raat] Too many dropouts (>3s dropped out in the last 30s). Killing stream
08/07 17:40:52 [Local 08/07 10:40:52] Trace: [airlens] [zoneplayer/raat] too many dropouts. stopping stream
08/07 17:40:52 [Local 08/07 10:40:52] Debug: FTMSI-B closed file for ti/D830D165; open files:0
08/07 17:40:52 [Local 08/07 10:40:52] Debug: FTMSI-B ti/D830D165 download status: AllBlocksDownloaded accessTimeout:True openFiles:0 prev:(AllBlocksDownloaded,True,1)
08/07 17:40:52 [Local 08/07 10:40:52] Trace: [airlens] [HighQuality, 24/48 QOBUZ FLAC => 32/48] [PLAYING @ 0:06/2:32] Love Love - Dinner Party / Arin Ray / 9th Wonder / Michael E. Neil / Robert Glasper / Terrace Martin
08/07 17:40:52 [Local 08/07 10:40:52] Warn: [zone airlens] Track Stopped Due to Slow Media
08/07 17:40:52 [Local 08/07 10:40:52] Info: [zone airlens] OnPlayFeedback StoppedEndOfMediaUnnatural

This is likely a problem we can resolve locally. Where is the Nucleus One connected to the network, relative to your main router? Do you have a mesh network or any managed switches?

Does this problem reproduce if you play low-res Qobuz or Tidal content to another endpoint/Zone?

Fortunately, we don’t see evidence of the Akamai zero-bytes delivery that was the symptom of the more widespread Qobuz hi-res failures reported and tracked here:

We’ll watch for your reply and proceed from there. Thank you!

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Thanks for the speedy response! The nucleus one is downstairs, one floor below the stereo. It is in a different room from the main router, about 15 feet away. It was previously farther away, and i had this problem before. I moved it to its current location and things were working fine for a few months. Nothing has changed in my wifi network since then. I have a mesh network (TP-link). If i play content from the Qobuz app on my laptop and stream it to the airlens, i have no issues, and it loads right away, whereas loading through Roon takes quite a few seconds of spinners. I tried playing a low-res track from Qobuz through the Roon and had the same problem

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Hello @martin.cassidy

Thanks, and one detail in your reply matters more than the rest.

The Nucleus One has no Wi-Fi. It only has an Ethernet port. So please tell us exactly what its network cable plugs into: the main TP-Link router itself, or one of the mesh satellites. If it is a satellite, then everything the Nucleus downloads crosses the wireless link between that satellite and the main router before it reaches the internet, and that link is the first thing we would suspect.

What the numbers say. Roon needed roughly 1,883 kbps sustained to keep the buffer fed and was getting about 400. That is not a marginal shortfall, it is a fifth of what is needed, and it explains why the low-res track failed too. Even 16/44 needs more than 400 kbps.

On the laptop comparison, which is the part that feels most confusing. It is a fair thing to try, but the two are not doing the same job, for two separate reasons.

First, the Qobuz app can buffer as far ahead as it likes. It is playing to one place and it does not have to deliver a bit-perfect stream, in sync, to a network audio device. Roon does. Roon has to keep a real-time stream fed to your AirLens continuously, so a connection that is perfectly adequate for the app can still be too slow for Roon. The app can absorb a slow patch by getting ahead; Roon cannot.

Second, Qobuz delivers audio to third-party applications through a different content network than it uses for its own app. So when you compare the two you are not even fetching from the same servers.

That is why your result and ours can both be true at once, and why we want to eliminate everything local before looking further afield. If the local side is clean, then a delivery problem on the Qobuz side becomes a real possibility and we will pursue it, but we cannot tell the two apart while the wireless hop is in play.

The test that settles the local side. Please take the Nucleus One temporarily to wherever your main TP-Link router is and plug it straight into the router with an Ethernet cable. It does not need to stay there, an hour is enough. Then play the same tracks. If they play cleanly, we know where to work. If they still fail with the Nucleus wired directly to the router, then the local network is not the cause and we move on to the delivery side.

Also, please open the TP-Link app and tell us what it reports for the satellite the Nucleus is connected to: its connection quality or signal strength, and whether its backhaul is wireless or wired.

One more thing worth mentioning, since it also points at “nothing has changed” being consistent with this. Mesh backhaul quality drifts on its own as neighbouring networks appear and channels get busier. A link that was just good enough can stop being good enough without you touching anything. Your own history fits that: it failed when the Nucleus was farther away, worked for months once you moved it closer, and has now started failing again.

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Thanks Vadim, that’s helpful info. That test is easier said than done, but i managed to do it. The nucleus was plugged into a mesh unit, in part because i needed both the nucleus and the airlens to be on the same subnet so they could see each other. But i plugged the nucleus directly into the tp-link router and then switched the tp-link mesh network to ‘access point mode’ instead of ‘router mode.’ After a lot of rebooting i seem to have it all working, and the roon app can find the nucleus and connect to the airlens. But i still have the same problem of the tracks crapping out after about 10-20 seconds. I did manage to play one track in its entirety, but all the others failed. You can look at logs from about 11:50am PT today, Aug 13th for some examples.

I did look in the tp-link app to see the quality of the connection. It listed it as “medium” with the download and upload speeds toggling quickly between various numbers, but since i wasn’t streaming anything at that time, i’m not sure if it’s useful information. I’m happy to leave the nucleus directly plugged into the router going forward, but of course i need it to actually work. Thanks for any pointers

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Hello @martin.cassidy

Thanks for that timestamp, it was exactly what we needed, and your logs give a clear answer. There are two things here, and they turn out to be unrelated.

The tracks stopping are Tidal previews, and that is not a fault. Looking at 11:50 on the 13th, every track played for about thirty seconds and then Roon moved on to the next one:

11:49:44 Chalky (Live v2) playing at 0:05 of 4:21
11:50:11 moves to next track after about 32 seconds
11:50:11 "T" Stands For Trouble playing at 0:00 of 4:58
11:50:41 moves to next track after 30 seconds
11:50:42 Theme From Trouble Man playing at 0:00 of 2:03
11:51:10 moves to next track after 28 seconds

The format Roon received tells the rest of the story. Those files came through as 22 kHz MP3, not lossless, which is what a preview clip is. Roon did not fail or error, it played the whole of what Tidal sent it and then advanced.

That is the behaviour of a Tidal plan that provides only 30 second previews to applications like Roon. Our records show your Tidal account on an Intro plan. Please confirm which Tidal subscription you hold. If it is Intro, full playback in Roon needs a tier that includes it, and there is nothing on your end or ours to fix.

The Qobuz problem was real, and your work on the network has largely fixed it. This is the good news. On 7 August, before you changed anything, Roon logged 72 warnings about insufficient bandwidth, killed the stream ten times, and reported ten tracks stopped due to slow media. On 13 August, with the Nucleus wired directly to your router, there were three bandwidth warnings and no killed streams at all.

So moving the Nucleus off the mesh did work. It just did not fix the Tidal previews, because those were never a bandwidth problem.

One thing remains worth watching. Those three Qobuz warnings show 1,454 kbps arriving where 1,787 was needed, and 1,641 where 1,902 was needed. That is close rather than badly short, so higher resolution Qobuz albums may still occasionally struggle. If you notice that, tell us and we will look again, and knowing what speed your internet plan provides would help at that point.

For now, please confirm your Tidal plan, and try a full-length Qobuz album to see how it holds up.

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Aha! It’s kind of maddening because i only added Tidal to troubleshoot if the issue was specific to Qobuz. I’ve removed my Tidal account and now it seems to be working!

A couple of related feature requests for Roon to consider: if multiple versions of a track exist, i would prefer that Roon default to the best quality one. And it would be nice if i could easily tell what version is playing. If i had seen something displayed about Tidal i might have tried to change it.

I will keep an eye (ear) out for issues. Ostensibly my internet plan allows for 10gig speeds, but i don’t think i ever get that with the current infrastructure in my neighborhood. A quick speed test on my phone in my living room showed download speed of 587mbps and upload of 536mbps.

Thanks again,

m.

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Hello @martin.cassidy

Good, and that explains the whole thing. Adding Tidal to rule out Qobuz turned out to be the cause, which is a frustrating way to find an answer.

On your two points, both already have answers in Roon today.

Seeing what is playing. Roon shows this during playback as a small glowing light along the bottom of the screen. Click it and you get the Signal Path, which lays out where the audio came from and everything that happened to it on the way to your AirLens. In your case it would have shown a low-quality 22 kHz MP3 rather than lossless, and that alone would have told you something was wrong with the source. The color of the light is a quick indicator too: yellow means low quality, green high quality, purple lossless.

Preferring the best version. Roon already does this. Where the same recording exists in more than one place, it picks the best version available to you, so there is nothing to switch on.

The exception is playlists, which keep the specific version that was added. That is deliberate, since if you added a particular remaster or live take, Roon should not quietly swap it. The side effect is that an older playlist can hold a lower-quality version even when a better one now exists.

For that there is the Playlist Improver. Open a playlist and Roon scans it, then offers an Improve button. Its Upgrade Quality option finds higher-quality versions, from your library or a connected service, and shows you each suggested swap with the format of both so you can accept or reject them individually. It also handles tracks that are no longer available and duplicates. It is on desktop and tablet, not phone.

Worth saying though: what happened to you was not a version-selection problem. Tidal was serving thirty second previews on that plan, so there was no better version on that service for Roon to choose.

On your speed test: 587 Mbps is your phone on Wi-Fi in the living room, so it says little about the wired path to the Nucleus. It does not need to. After your change the logs went from 72 bandwidth warnings and ten killed streams down to three warnings and none, so the wired connection is doing its job.

Closing this here. If a high-resolution Qobuz album starts stuttering, please open a new thread with a link to this one and the time it happened, and we will pick up where we left off.