Roon library beautification, on your schedule

[jamie]

Hey, Community

I wanted to share some additional info about a change we made in Build 1639, since the nugs integration stole the spotlight. We’ve heard your requests for more control over when Roon handles background library work—a series of collection-curation duties that keep your music metadata fresh, artwork beautiful, and your browsing experience enjoyable.

Starting with this update, you can schedule that work to run during a specific window each night (1–5 AM by default), rather than continuously throughout the day. What this means is Roon will tackle your library beautification tasks when you’re not actively using the system, preserving your server’s resources for what matters most during listening sessions: exploring and enjoying your music.

Letting you schedule background library cleanup at times when you’re not using Roon lets your system focus entirely on what’s important while you’re listening. This method of reducing competition for computing resources is the same approach that audio device manufacturers use to optimize music playback.

You may be wondering, ‘Sounds great, but what if I’m importing music files, adding a new release in Qobuz, or making edits to album info?’ No worries, you’re still free to do that stuff anytime you want.

Roon handles those tasks immediately, regardless of your background work schedule, because you’re actively making changes. It’s different from the passive tidying Roon does, which you’ve moved to a more convenient time. Roon will also rescan upon startup and check your streaming services for new additions periodically throughout the day.

Reasons you may not want to schedule background work:

• the scheduled window doesn’t fit your routine

• you prefer things the way they were before

• your Roon server is only active when you’re listening

• you power on and off the computer running Roon throughout the day

If any of these scenarios apply, you can easily revert to continuous background work in Settings → Library → Background Work.

Choice is a beautiful thing, and we hope this change gives you the control you’ve been asking for. Please let us know how it works for you.

For more technical details on scheduling background work functions and what gets scheduled when, check out our Knowledge Base article.

[Mr.Flibble]

A much welcomed feature

Are there any plans to extend this function to include specific days of the week?

Under normal use you can set the number of CPU cores to be used.

With the schedule set this doesn’t seem to be an option. Is it a case of set the number of cores under normal use, then enable a schedule which honours the number of CPU cores used?

If not, is this a planned addition to the function?

[Mike_O_Neill]

Great idea , I spotted it yesterday

[Mikael_Ollars]

I’m a bit curious about the required 4hr windows for maintenance, thats a mighty long time, even if it is occuring during night time?

Throttling could be applied to this too, same as under library analysis?

I haven’t found a way to manually init a maintenance task, wouldn’t that be a convenient feature?

[jamie]

@Mikael_Ollars

I’m a bit curious about the required 4hr windows for maintenance, thats a mighty long time, even if it is occuring during night time?

Where do you see it stated that it takes four hours? 1-5 am is just the default time frame in which background work will occur if a user doesn’t choose a different schedule.

[David_White1 (David White)]

If you try to set a 3hr schedule it insists that it’s at least 4 hours.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@jamie

Where do you see it stated that it takes four hours?

Right there in the UI

[Mikael_Ollars]

I just realised that setting the “Disable schedule” in this dialogue makes it impossible to revert to a scheduled maintenance in the other dialogue (scheduled/unscheduled)

I love the function, next step; tidy up the interface.

[Matthias_Angert (M.A.)]

Hi all,
I have set Roon to German language and the new function is not translated to German, it looks a bit strange and seems not to be tested in all languages.
Matt

[Geoff_Coupe]

The translations are a community-driven effort, and I think the latest additions have caught people by surprise. See:

New Strings Available To Translate - Notification Thread!

Hi, @TranslationAdmins, we had new strings in today. This includes: nugs integration The scheduled update area And several other projects which we’ve release during past 3-4 months. I apologize for us going under the radar with the translations, but now we are back up and running. Thanks! – Ivan

[Matthias_Angert (M.A.)]

I wasn’t aware of that, Thanks for the clarification Geoff!

Matt

[Mikael_Ollars]

And you are of course welcome to chime in, by visiting translations.roonlabs.net
Log in using your Roon credentials and you can visit the German section, see translations, as well as identify whats untranslated.

[Toolio]

A welcome change. Thanks very much.

[Manu]

Indeed a welcome improvement!

[Dale_Bastin (dbastin2605)]

If Roon Server is left on all the time, when does maintenance occur if the scheduled is not activated?

[Mikael_Ollars]

@Dale_Bastin

when does maintenance occur if the scheduled is not activated?

As stated in the UI:

It is however unclear if:

• The throttling is applied to scheduled maintenance
• Whether Analysis an Background Work are two different sets of chores or one…
• Why the GUI splits these up and uses the throttling as a “separator” in the GUI

[David_White1 (David White)]

Analysis is analysing local files that it hasn’t analysed yet. It will only ever do this when adding new local files, as after that point they have all been analysed. It’s nothing to do with the background maintenance etc. and the ability to schedule it is presumably afforded because you might add 100,000 local files and not want your system choked up right now

[Mikael_Ollars]

Your description does not match the KB article, neither the GUI descriptive text, see above..

[David_White1 (David White)]

Yes it does.

Audio analysis (which is to do with your local library; it doesn’t analyse streaming files hence no visible waveforms etc. on those and no loudness data if it’s absent from the streaming service) is a completely separate item from ‘background work’ which is to do with metadata and maintenance. Audio analysis is a separate KB article https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/audio-analysis
but to quote its only appearance in the main one
”When new music is added to your library, Roon immediately identifies and analyzes each file to understand its audio characteristics and contextualize it in your library. Over time, Roon periodically revisits every track in your library, to update and improve metadata, fill in missing artwork, and identify any previously unidentified tracks. Roon also re-scans your network storage locations to check for any new additions.”
Roon does not revisit the initial audio analysis (there is no reason to), just the identification and metadata stuff, and the question was “when does maintenance occur…”, which is under “background work” not the “background audio analysis” menu that you posted. Not that the answer is different; if the schedule is disabled the wording used is “run continuously”.

Basically the GUI splits them up because they are separate things

[Mikael_Ollars]

@David_White1

which is under “background work” not the “background audio analysis” menu that you posted. Not that the answer is different; if the schedule is disabled the wording used is “run continuously”.

But if you try the function out, you’ll notice that they are intertwined. Hence the request for clarification.

@David_White1

and the ability to schedule it is presumably afforded because you

The KB article clearly states that adding files to your local library is not considered background work, neither is the analysis of those.
Am i reading it wrong?