Roon playback issue with USB DAC on Mac Mini (ref#B1WKB4)

Support
1

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

· I have run into a really weird issue with Roon playback. The directly attached USB DAC to the Mac Mini (Roon Server) won't play music. Music is played via the screen sharing session. I'll provide more detail.

Setup:
Mac Desktop (Remote) ---> Ethernet ---> Mac Mini (Roon Server & Remote) ---> USB DAC (main rig)

The Roon Server Audio setup selects the USB DAC. The Mac Mini sees the USB DAC via Sounds control panel. I can see the sample rate change when selecting & playing different tracks, so I know Roon is talking to the DAC, or at least the Mac Mini is.

If I remote into the Mac Mini from my Mac Desktop with the USB DAC (main rig) selected, music does not play. If I remote into the Mini via Mac OS screen share, I get music at my Mac Desktop. It is coming via the screen share, even though the Mac Mini Remote has the USB DAC selected as the Zone.

What I've done:
1. Restarted Roon Remote & Server
2. Restarted the Mac Mini
3. Reverted to a backup (yesterday's) where everything worked
4. Switched Exclusive Mode On/Off (neither worked)

I noticed the USB DAC on the Mac Mini under the Sound control panel has its Mute button ON. I can't unmute. Same with the Mac Mini speaker. Which is odd.

The USB DAC works with a S/PDIF input off of a CD player, so the chain works.

I don't understand how the Mac Mini can change the sample rate on the USB DAC, but audio data doesn't flow through.

I'm looking for ideas to try as I continue to troubleshoot the problem. In 10 years of Roon, this is the first time I've had this happen.

Thanks

Tell us about your home network

· Ethernet attached everywhere

2

I figured out a solution, though it was a weird workaround.

I came back the next day, using a laptop to check the USB interface (I’m trying to rule out everything). The laptop worked playing direct (w/o Roon).

After plugging the Mac Mini USB back in, I tried to unmute the interface & this time it worked. The issue was with the sound control panel not wanting to unmute the output channel. But I don’t know why it wouldn’t do it yesterday, while removing the cable & reattaching it today let it unmute.

Please close this ticket.

Thanks

3

Hi @redflatcat,

Glad you found the workaround and confirmed the issue was with the Mac Mini’s audio output mute state rather than Roon playback itself.

If it comes back, the next things I’d want to look at are the Mac audio settings around that USB DAC and whether macOS is intermittently holding the output muted after sleep or a device reconnect.

We can close this out for now, and if you see the mute state get stuck again, send us a reopen request and the exact local time and what the Mac was doing when it happened so we can dig in further.

Thanks!