Roon Radio limits playback to Library for certain artists (ref#U0RJQV)

Support
1

What’s happening?

· Something else

How can we help?

· None of the above

Other options

· Other

Describe the issue

Roon Radio limits playback to Library for some Artists

Describe your network setup

ROCK i7 32GB RAM, TP-Link Omada Cabled

2

For some artists i get the following pop-up message before Radio starts. “Nothing similar found: Limiting Roon Radio to Library” then Radios starts and tracks is as stated only from Library.

Examples of artist that has this behaviour:
Def Leppard / Deep Purple / Blues Brothers / Whitesnake / Van Halen

Other artist works as intended , examples:
Beat Farmers / The J. Geils Band / The Notting Hillbillies

I also get this message/behaviour for genre’s “British Metal” while “Country” and “Heartland Rock” works fine. "“Boogie Rock” works today but not the two previous days.

The behaviour is the same across profiles.

I belive that this behaviour started after the update that fixed the adding of banned tracks to radio , iow at the end of last week.

// No stress :slight_smile: i can still play my music and incl. Radio from Albums and Tracks.

3

Hi @EinTo.Shuffle,

Thank you for the report. Does this occur with both ARC and Roon?

Just for thoroughness and due diligence, please share a screenshot of the error message you receive when attempting to play from one of the Arist or Genre pages mentioned above. Verify that the “limit Roon Radio to library” function is toggled off.

We’ll pick it up from there and report back.

4

Hello
Yes, both ARC and Roon (on two windows PC’s) .

PRTSCRN of Error message below. The error message arrives first and then short after the “Started Roon Radio”.
In my notes here i see that the first day this occured (29th ?) the error message was “Unexpected Error: Limiting Roon Radio to Library”.
The radio-button for “limit Roon Radio to library” is off/disabled both for ARC and Roon (PC’s).

I have tested again today with the same artists as listed above and the behaviour is the same both for working and not working as expected. For genre “Boogie Rock” though i experienced both working and not working with both sessions started from Windows PC. I believe i have seen this shift for genre also earlier.
I have PRTSCRN’s of the Radio sessions if You need it.

FYI : Roon was quite sluggish today with slow response while ARC crashed a few times . ARC was used on iPhone at home/Wifi.

All on latest Roon software.

Edit: I have added my own customized genres for some artists. Though when investigating this i can not see any pattern between artists that play Radio as expected and not.

Roon Radio - nothing _ 2024-09-04 135716
Roon Radio - nothing _ 2024-09-04 1357161916×1064 228 KB

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Hey @EinTo.Shuffle,

Thanks for sharing the screenshot and timestamp! While our team investigates further, lets see if the same issue occurs from a fresh database:

  • Create a fresh backup (or, if you have a recently saved backup, this is fine too)
  • Stop RoonServer from running in ROCK’s WebUI
  • Navigate to your ROCK’s Database Location
  • Find the folder that says “RoonServer”
  • Rename the “RoonServer” folder to “RoonServer_old”
  • Restart the RoonServer in the WebUI to generate a new Roon database folder
  • On the Roon Remotes, press “Use another Roon Server” and connect to the new database

See if the same issue persists. Thanks! :+1:

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Hello @benjamin
Thanks for following up on this.

Fiddling with the Roon Server database seems risky from where i sit. Last time i rolled back using a baskup it took a few days. I do not exclude doing it but will have a secong though, especially before a weekend and after detecting that my second Roon Server has the same behaviour. See table below for updated test results from today.
If You still want me to do the test starting with a blank database i would prefer to do this on my #2 Roon Server if that is ok with You.

#1: Roon Server being reported on above. Running for two years. This configuration has multiple profiles. Tested with Roon on W10 and W11 and ARC.
#2: My second Roon Server dedicated to ProgRock . This one was established 2 months ago. Library is mainly Tidal. This configuration has only one profile. Tested with Roon on W11.

Artist #1 #2
Def Leppard :x: :x:
Deep Purple :x: :x:
Blues Brothers :x: :x:
Whitesnake :x: :x:
Van Halen :x: :x:
Beat Farmers :white_check_mark: :x: :x:
The J. Geils Band :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:
The Notting Hillbillies :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:
Genres:
British Metal :x: :white_check_mark: :x:
Boogie Rock :x: :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:
Country :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:
Heartland Rock :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:
Neo Prog :white_check_mark:

Note that when testing with Server #2 the artist radios with error starts by playing Neo Prog music from my library which is “special” when starting radio for “Blues Brothers”. From what i can see Roon does not detect the seed and just starts playing Library. See figure below. I have not seen this behaviour from my Server #1, though this has a more versatile library with different genres where #2 is fully focusing in Neo Prog.

Roon_W10_Blues Brothers _ Neo Prog _(ProgRock Server) 2024-09-06 095740
Roon_W10_Blues Brothers _ Neo Prog _(ProgRock Server) 2024-09-06 095740664×1055 42.3 KB

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Hey @EinTo.Shuffle,

Thanks for the additional information!

If you want to temporarily test a fresh database, you can rename the current RoonServer folder to “RoonServer_old.” Later, to switch back to your old library, just rename it back to “RoonServer,” and your previous library will be restored. :+1:

Since you’re experiencing similar issues across different devices, it may be worth testing your upstream network connection. We have seen users have a better experience in the past if they change their Router’s DNS servers from the ISP-provided ones to Cloudflare DNS, Quad9 or Google DNS. Can you please give this a try and let me know if it helps?

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On my side it looks like you’ve banned Def Leppard, Blues Brothers, Van Halen, are now starting sessions on those artists, and these sessions are failing to start?

13

Hello @nathan
These artists is “Loved” in the actual profile (Einar) where i start the Radio. Though in another profile (Bodil) they are banned.

For the Server #2 these 3 artists is not in the library and do not have banning nor loved.

14

Hello @benjamin

I already use the Google DNS .
I will do the test decribed for my Server #2 and report back.

15

Can you confirm the number of banned performers on each of these profiles?

Einar, Bodil, and the ProgRock_HardRock ones?

Thanks,
Nathan

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As requested:

Bodil Banned (in Library)
Artists = 73
Albums = 26
Tracks = 14955

Einar Banned (in Library)
Artists = 34
Albums = 5
Tracks = 6069

ProgRock_HardRock Banned (in Library)
Artists = 127
Albums = 25
Tracks = 4571

Banned on Tidal/Qobuz i do not know since Focus does not cover this. I would assume approx 5% of the figures above where some of them are doubling up on tracks.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Edit: Added info from my Roon Server #2 which has only one profile and less banning , though same behaviour with the same artists and genres.

Prog Server #2 // Banned (in Library)
Artists = 6
Albums = 7
Tracks = 88

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Can you identify if you have any profiles that have 327 performers banned? I’m trying to chase down where some incorrect data is coming from.

Bodil Banned (in Library)

I presume the (in Library) means that you don’t see the number for performers that are not in your profile - so if you had banned 327 including not-in-profile performers you’d only see those 73?

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None of my profiles has as many as 327 banned Artists (Performers?)

Correct; i used Focus to capture these figures. Focus only sees music that is in Your library. For Banned stuff in streaming services there is no way of finding.

Regarding number of Artists/Performers it seems like Focus reports on main artist , iow if there are multiple artists performing (credited) together with the Main artists they would be listed as banned as well - but not counted in Focus.
I belive i read somewhere in another tread that one of Roon’s employes expained that when banning an Artists this would also included artists performing together with the main artists. Example banning “The Higwaymen” would ban all four (Cash, Jennings, Nelson and Kristoffersen) ? Ref. Your 327.
Or could the banned reported information also include the artists albums …

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pls note that i updated the post above where numbers of counts with figures from another Roon Server with a more limited set-up.

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So the nuance is that multiple artists performing together will be used to apply bans in the broker - but the data I’m looking at here is actually your strict bans - so items you looked at and clicked the ‘ban’ button on.

Anyways I’ve pm’d for some more detailed investigations.

21

Have found the root cause here - there’s a broker side issue with how bans are reported to the cloud. I can’t surgically hotfix this in the backend - but we have a ticket in and it’ll work it’s way through the normal release process.

Thanks again for reporting this and working through the debug process with me.

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That’s good news , thanks for the support :+1:

No hurry with the fix, i manage well here and can play music.

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