Roon on my iPhone no longer shows my iPhone as an audio zone. Also, since the update to the latest version, the searches still seem much slower than with version 1.5.
The iPhone not showing up as an audio zone is an old bug for me. The workaround is to go into Settings->Audio and you will see your iPhone listed as “Enabling” but not “Enabled”. It seems to be stuck in the process. If you press Disable, the Enable, then it usually gets back to normal. Not sure why this bug is there, but I see it a lot.
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Hello @Andrew_Stein & @Sevenfeet,
I have split up your posts to gather some more information on this issue, can you please let me know the following?
- How often does this issue occur?
- Was it just after the update or do you see this regularly occurring?
- What triggers this behavior? Is it when you exit the Roon app and go back in?
- Does it seem to occur when locking your iOS device and opening it up again?
- What model of iPhone do you have and what iOS firmware version are you on?
Thanks,
Noris
Hi Noris,
To answer your questions:
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For me, this actually happens a lot. So often that I considered filing bug reports on it a few times but usually I would end up turning my attention to something else. I’m a relatively new user to Roon (7/13/18), coming in at version 1.5. I’ve seen all version since that release I began with have this issue up until 1.6(401). I have yet to see it on 401 though I haven’t had a lot of time with it since it dropped yesterday (I’ve tried four times as of this writing and not been able to duplicate the issue so far). It usually takes up to 30 seconds for Roon iOS Client to present the iPhone as an available zone. When the problem occurs, that never happens.
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Regularly occurring. Not all the time, but often enough to be an annoyance.
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I wish I could say there is a specific trigger. I’ve seen it happen with just listening to wither lightning-based EarPods, bluetooth AirPods and my portable Oppo HA-2 DAC. I don’t think the listening headphone device matters…the software is trying to mate with the Core and doesn’t even give the iPhone as an available audio zone until you go into Settings->Audio and perform the workaround.
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I can’t say that locking and unlocking matters. But my phone is a corporate iPhone so it’s set up to lock the phone every time the screen goes off. So unlocking is always done when I pick it up.
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iPhone X/256GB. OS is 12.1.4. I’m pretty anal about software and security upgrades…I’m the type that usually updates their phone (and every other Apple device in the house) within hours of a release.
The Core is running on a vintage 2008 Mac Pro with 8 Xeon Cores (3.0 Ghz/16 GB RAM) hacked to run High Sierra. Storage is a Drobo 5D3 connected via USB 3 (the Mac Pro has a USB 3 card). The Mac Pro is also running a Plex server though it’s unusual if Plex and Roon are asked to stream at the same time. It is also running Mac OS X Server software, mainly for file service, DNS and VPN.
Hello @Sevenfeet,
Thank you for sharing that information. I have brought up this issue again with the team today and have added your response to the investigation we have. Now that you have spent some time with Roon 1.6, are you still able to reproduce this issue?
If you are able to reproduce this issue, can you please let me know the exact local time in your country (e…g. 6:25PM) that it occurs at and which Roon Remote/Core you are using? I would then like to enable diagnostics mode for your account and see if there is any more insight that can be gained from log analysis.
Thanks,
Noris
Yes the issue still occurs. I just got it to do it on or about 9:26 PM in the US.
One other observation about this version is that it’s much easier for the iOS to lose contact with the core than in previous versions, occasionally not even finding the core upon wake. Not sure if this helps your search.
Let me know how to proceed in diagnostics mode so I can help.
Hello @Sevenfeet,
Thank you for providing that timestamp. I have gone ahead and enabled diagnostics mode for your account and what this action will do is next time your Core and iOS device is active with Roon open, a set of logs will automatically be generated and uploaded to our servers for analysis. I will take a look to see if there are any traces which could indicate where the issue lies and loop in the QA team as needed.
Thanks,
Noris
Ok here’s the first thing to look at.
At 3:52 PM CDT I fired up Roon on my iPhone X to look for a specific album that is local to my library (The soundtrack to the anime movie “Metropolis”). Ever since you turned on logging on the core, performance with Roon on iOS seems to have gotten worse. In this case, I just was presented with the Roon icon while it was searching for an album already in the database and wasn’t coming back. Yes it could have been searching on Tidal too but it’s unclear to me where the problem was. Also, the iPhone was not showing up as a zone Roon could play to which is why we are doing this.
Finally I tried going up to my Mac and looking up the same album. At that point the album in question returned quickly and I could play it. I went back to my phone and not only could it now see the album in question but I could also select the iPhone as a zone. Very curious.
Another data point…9:11 PM CDT 3/13/19 I fired up Roon iOS 1.6 with my Oppo HA-2 portable DAC. It could not activate the iPhone as a Roon endpoint until I visited Settings->Audio and pressed the “disable” button as it seemed the app was hung on trying to enable. Once disabled I could press enable to get it working.
I also have another iOS bug to report. Sometimes with my external DAC the Roon app mistakenly thinks that 44.1khz is not an option to output to the DAC, instead going through the trouble of changing the resolution to 48khz which is undesirable. If I power down the DAC and turn it back on, sometimes it will get 44.1khz correct on those sources (which is all CD music).
Hello @Sevenfeet,
I just wanted to update you here and let you know that we are still looking into this issue based on the timestamps you reported, I appreciate your patience here until the investigation concludes. Diagnostics mode should not affect your Core performance, so the issue you had with the album lookup was due to a separate cause and not diagnostics mode, possibly an environmental factor that resolved itself.
As for the other iOS issue you reported, this would best be addressed in a separate support thread. Please do specify which external DAC you are experiencing this behavior with and we can take a closer look to see what’s happening.
Thanks,
Noris
Thanks for your reply. I’ll open up the DAC issue in another thread.
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Hello @Sevenfeet,
I have a few follow-up questions as to help with the investigation, can you please let me know:
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What is your network setup like? Please list the model/manufacturer of your router, any switches, range extenders, powerline adapters, ect.
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We have the attempts that you noted on March 7th, but the March 13th attempts have not reached out diagnostics servers yet. Can you please open the Roon app on your phone and leave it open a few minutes so that this report also is included in the investigation?
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Can you please reboot your Core + iOS device and reproduce this issue once more with everything in a fresh state? This will give us some additional traces to compare to the previous timestamps you noted.
Thanks,
Noris
OK, the Roon app for iOS is open and I’ll leave it open for a few minutes. Also, the problem is occurring now with it as the device in “Audio” is stuck on “Enabling…”. I launched it at 3:31 PM CDT, 4/1/19. I cannot reboot my phone right this second since I am on a long customer call right now. I did try it again at 3:58 PM CDT 4/1/19 and this time it did properly enable my iPhone as a Roon client.
My network backbone is a Netgear GS116 16 port gigabit switch sitting in my basement. There are a few downstream switches serving various functions. I have two Netgear GS108 gigabit switches, one on my desk serving my 2008 Mac Pro desktop machine and other nearby devices, and another serving the home theater rack (an Oppo 203 Roon client lives here). The Roon Core (which is another 2008 Mac Pro different from my desktop machine) is connected directly to the GS116 through a six foot Cat 6 cable in the basement. The only non-Netgear switch is a D-link DGS-2205 5-port gigabit switch serving our Sun Room/Kitchen where an elderly 2010 Mac Mini serves as a Roon client connected to a Denon X2000 receiver.
There are a number of wifi routers on the network, though some are just functioning as switches with wifi off. The main ground floor network wifi router is an Apple 6th gen Airport Extreme connected directly to the Netgear GS116 through a cat-6 cable (about 30ft).
Also on the ground floor is a Apple 2nd gen Airport Express 802.11n (hooked up to the home theater Netgear GS108), another Apple 2nd gen Airport Express 802.11n (sitting in the 2 channel room) hooked up to an old Apple 2nd gen Airport Extreme (which is connected directly to the GS116). This Airport Extreme is just operating as a switch since it was available. Wifi is off for both units in the 2 channel listening room. The function is the Airport Express is for Airplay 2 service for Apple Music as a backup to Roon/Tidal. The 2 channel room has an old 2008 iMac hacked to run Windows 10 which is solely a Roon music kiosk, as well as an Oppo 205 which can speak to Roon directly.
Upstairs in our house is a Netgear R8000 wifi router functioning as a wifi access point, hooked to the GS116 through a long cat 6 cable (probably 80+ ft). And finally there is an old Apple Airport Extreme in our bedroom, ,again just serving as a switch with wifi off. It is also connected to the GS116 through a long Cat 6 cable (not the same as the Netgear).
The local LAN has been very stable over the years with only a few bad actors causing problems over time. But right now, everything is stable. All devices that can be wired in my network are wired (desktop computers/servers, TVs, receivers/prepros, an Oppo 203 and 205 and a host of other things. Wifi devices include phones, iPads, laptops and IoT devices. WAN to the outside world is a Comcast gigabit ethernet connection (connected to the Apple 6th gen Airport Extreme at the center of the network, which then feeds the GS116. All long household network cables are either Cat 5e or Cat 6. I wired and terminated the entire network myself except for where I used a contractor to pull several Cat 6 wires between the basement and attic.
Hi @Sevenfeet,
I know it’s been a bit of time since we last spoke, but I just wanted to come back to you here and let you know that we still have some work in progress in trying to tackle this issue.
Our QA team has spent quite a good amount of time testing this behavior and verifying if locking the screen triggers this issue or if navigating out of the app triggers it, ect. but so far they have not found a way to consistently reproduce this behavior, it appears to occur randomly as far as we can tell.
Getting this behavior reproducible consistently would be something that is needed before we are able to file a bug report with the devs, otherwise any changes they make on the dev side of things will be very difficult to verify if it resolves the issue.
These kinds of issues are the trickiest to narrow down, since there could be a wide range of factors that trigger this – iOS internal “hibernation” features, a very temporary network disconnect between the Roon Remote and the Core, the iOS audio drivers themselves, and it is difficult to pinpoint at this present time.
With this in mind, I wanted to ask you here, is there any consistent set of steps that will place you into this state? Even if it is not every single time you use the app, any further feedback you have on what could cause this to occur will be useful. If you want to try some experiments here, the team has noted that simplifying the network to the bare minimum might allow us to get a good data point.
By this I mean, if you compare how often it occurs per week now and you then remove the switch from the equation and leave just the router, does the number of times that it occur go up or down? If you add more complexity in, is there any change in that way? That’s a good data point for us to know and would be useful, so do let me know how often you are still seeing this presently and then how often if you add/remove complexity.
We are going to keep trying to make this behavior reproducible in the lab but if you have any further suggestions as to what can trigger it, please do let us know.
Thanks,
Noris
I’m wondering if there has been any resolution of this issue. It happens to me probably daily. I’ll be listening to Roon at home via my AirPods and iPhone. I’ll pause a track or stop playback. Later I’ll try to play something else and Roon won’t recognize my iPhone as a zone, only my DAC in another room
I’m not sure I answered support’s question from back in April. So if it helps, I still see this problem all the time, and no, I haven’t been able to come up with a consistent method for triggering the problem, just that it happens ALL THE TIME. In fact, I decided to try it now, right after I replaced the super slow hard drive in my Roon Server machine with an SSD. And the iOS app was still not showing itself as a Roon endpoint. In Settings->Audio, it’s frozen in the “Enabling” part, with no change. The only way to get past it is to disable the target, then re-enable and then most likely it will work. i say “most likely” since that still isn’t a guarantee.
Since this is an issue when it does try to enable the device as an active Roon endpoint and just sits there without resolving it, my initial guess is that there is a communication issue between the iOS device and the core. But as Noris pointed out, there could be other things going on here that is interrupting the process. And since I don’t have the code for a code review, I can’t offer any ideas that are better than pure speculation. I also haven’t seen a logging mechanism that users could turn on for more data to examine…that might be useful in a later version of Roon.
As to the suggestions about network complexity or latency, well while my household network is more complicated than the typical house, I can’t imagine anything I’m doing that would be all that unusual in terms of network hardware, outside of the age of some of the pieces. My Roon Server is a 2008 Mac Pro (8 core, 16 GB of RAM) which was running High Sierra (yes, hacked to do so) for years until I very recently upgraded it to Catalina and moved the boot drive to an SSD. Yes, everything is faster now, but I can’t say that Roon is any different. Main storage are several hard drives (four internal), one Drobo 4 bay (Firewire) and one Drobo 5D3 5 bay (USB 3 via a PCI card). Roon’s music targets are all on the older, slower Drobo 4 bay. I’ll move it to the Drobo 5D3 once I upgrade a hard drive for more storage.
As for my network, my house is all Cat 5e, Cat 6 and 6a Ethernet depending on when it was installed. All devices in the house that can be wired (smart TVs, Apple TVs, desktop computers, servers, etc) are wired. I use a Netgear GS116 (16 port gigabit) as the backbone with GS108 (8 port gigabit) and GS105 (5 port gigabit) around the house when i need more ports. There are two working wireless routers…an Apple Airport Extreme 6-gen which is directly connected to the GS116 (Cat 6a wire) and is the main household router. A Netgear R8000 handles the top floor, also directly connected to the GS116 via Cat 6 wire. Network latency is pretty nice all around the house. Wireless spectrum is reserved for devices that cannot connect wired…laptops, iPhones, iPads, IoT devices). it doesn’t seem to matter where in the house I am that triggers the problem with Roon; it doesn’t matter on the controlling router.
In order to accomplish what you want me to do, I’d have to bypass the GS116 switch and directly connect the Apple Airport to the Mac Pro server, which would disable the rest of the house…not easy to do with a family all at home due to COVID and often watching content. I was hoping that the new SSD might be a potential fix with reducing latency but that didn’t work.
I also have this happen periodically. Like the others said, after I have paused the music and possibly have walked away for a bit. Happens on my iPhone and iPad.
I have the same problem on an iPhone XS
I noticed that Roon on iPhone sometimes shows up in Zones list in Roon core and sometimes disappears from the list. The other times is not showing up at all. After looking at different zone options available on iPhone I found that iPhone zone was set to private. After making change, iPhone was visible to Roon core. The other issue is that pausing playback using pause/play button causes iPhone app to loose connection to core. Closing app and removing from memory (double tap and swipe) than reopening it fixes the problem. Interestingly, when playing through AirPods, when you remove one of them, playback pauses, but it continues playing when put both AirPods back. Lost connectivity is an issue and it is not LAN related but app related.