Roon on latest MacMini runs hot

[John_Kelly]

I recently bought a new mac mini and installed a fresh copy of Roon. I have both Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions. I have not setup any local music. While playing music, from either service, I noticed that the mini runs hot! The fan noise was noticeable. The music goes thru the USB to my Music Hall DAC and from there to my Sansui AU-D11 integrated amplifier and Paradigm speakers. Nothing else of significance is running on the Mini. Any suggestions?

Details:
| Mojave 10.14.5|
| Model Identifier:|Macmini8,1|
| Processor Name:|Intel Core i7|
| Processor Speed:|3.2 GHz|
| Number of Processors:|1|
| Total Number of Cores:|6|
| L2 Cache (per Core):|256 KB|
| L3 Cache:|12 MB|
| Hyper-Threading Technology:|Enabled|
| Memory:|64 GB|
| Boot ROM Version:|220.260.170.0.0 (iBridge: 16.16.5125.0.0,0)|
| 2 TB SSD

music hall dac25.3:
Default Input Device: Yes
Default Output Device: Yes
Default System Output Device: Yes
Input Channels: 2
Manufacturer: music hall
Output Channels: 2
Current SampleRate: 44100
Transport: USB
Input Source: Default

Screenshot of MacMini temperature:
Output Source: Default

5 min after quiting Roon: no other changes

[EvilGnome6]

This looks like the same issue reported in this thread:

High CPU Usage on Mac Mini 2018

Here’s an interesting observation. If I have the Roon Bridge Running before I launch the Roon app, I don’t experience the high CPU usage.

I found that having the Roon Bridge running before launching the Roon App would avoid the high CPU usage.

[wizardofoz (Mr Fix It aka The Wiz)]

I like that TG Pro software

[noris]

Hi @John_Kelly,

Thanks for reaching out to us here. As mentioned in the linked thread, we are investigating similar symptoms.

One additional aspect that would be interesting to know – if you reinstall the Roon app, does the same behavior still occur?

– Noris

[John_Kelly]

It took some time but last night I deinstalled Roon, removing both the binaries and the /Library/{username}/Roon database and cache files. I’ve reinstalled Roon and let it run all last night - no issues. I’ve also tried various combinations of running Roon, Audiovana, Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal and Deezer . (I would really love for Deezer and Spotify to be added to Roon, btw) In all cases, now the cpu is running at reasonable temperatures and I’m not seeing the original issue. I realize its speculation but could this have been a database/cache corruption issue? In any event, it works now - LoL, so I can’t complain. If you need a guinea pig for further testing, please let me know.

thanks,
j

[noris]

Hi @John_Kelly,

Glad to hear that the reinstall helped resolve the issue! I am not sure why this behavior would occur, but glad to hear that it has subsided after the fresh install. The only further testing that would be useful here is seeing if it occurs again and if so what exactly triggers it. I’m going to mark this thread as [Solved] for now, but if you notice this behavior being triggered by one specific set of actions that would be useful to know. Thanks!

– Noris