I have been regularly reading the boards for the last week or two. There seem to be an increasing number of users that are experiencing issues with Roon, particularly Arc. I’m not one of them, but maybe thats because I’m not using Arc at all! For me Roon is working fine, but it is a bit depressing to read of all the issues others are having. I guess forums are not a great place to work out the proportion of happy users as people are more likely to post if they have issues, but does anyone have a feel for the proportion of subscribers who are having problems with Arc and/or Roon?
I am inclined to think that part of the problem is that Roon is trying to support too many operating systems, i.e. Rock, Windows, Mac, Linux, plus QNAP and Synology NAS.
Its great for us (if its all working well) as it gives so much choice but it must be a nightmare to fix for Roon staff as there are so many combinations customers have. Maybe they would be better to pick one (Rock obviously)? It might make it a lot more stable. BTW I’m still using Windows so not that keen on this idea. I was (and still am) intending to move to Rock though.
Just a thought but feel free to tell me I’m talking rubbish, I’m not expert on IT!
Correct, it is a support forum. Only Roon themselves know the proportion of fully working systems to those that have issues, so it is impossible to speculate. However, Roon supposedly has 250,000+ users, so how many of those are represented here with issues? The exact number is unimportant but it is clearly a tiny percentage of total users.
With regard to OS support, Roon are not responsible for numerous Windows firewall issues (which seem to occur with every tedious Windows update), nor the increasing number of users that are running managed networks (Ubiquiti) without any knowledge to manage them. One of the USPs of Roon is that it works across many different systems and can be mixed and matched, so to abandon this would go against a basic principle of the product.
ARC has introduced a whole other bunch of problems admittedly, which appear to be taking up valuable resources to address and fix. As ARC is around a year old, sticking with it is the only option for Roon.
No, I don’t agree to limit OS support. What should be limited is new feaures until the core functionality of ARC and the stability of ARC and the core are ironed out. Who needed MUSE on ARC when it has so many core functionality problems (album art, downloads, etc.). Roon should take a step back and really make ARC stable with its original features, and only then add new.
Considering most of us in our little social group have all had issues I feel it’s much larger affected userbase than that, Roon will not admit to that as it won’t be good PR. It’s also not something new either, the core being taking out I flagged this time last year, some more recent release seems to trigger it a lot more.
My situation is maybe not the norm , I live in a country that has a failing electricity system and is prone to very “vigorous” lightning storms in summer. (We had 2 yesterday)
As a result Roon gets shut down regularly and rebooted from scratch network included, in winter not quite everyday but in summer every night delicate electronics are unplugged from the mains . (years ago a direct lightening strike cost me , well the insurance, an AV amp, audio streamer , video streamer as the lightening ripped thorough my network so once bitten twice shy).
Before I am told, I appreciate that a server is designed for long term 24/7 operation but extenuating circumstances prevail.
I have run Roon for 7 years on either a desktop i7 7700 and latterly a NUC 10 i7 , both of which I have had zero reliability problems.
My use case is simple , no upsampling , little DSP just bit perfect playing to a headphone amp , with Tidal as my streaming service. No ARC . All connections being Ethernet
On the forum , quite often the solution to user issues is to reboot , I am at a loss as to why people don’t do this as a first option , there seems to be an inbuilt fear of re-booting hardware. The next biggest culprit is Wi Fi.
The number of unhappy users on the forum is quite small, the last Roon user count was >250k , and that was a long time ago , 2-3 years ? . So while any unhappy customers is bad that figure I believe is quite low. It is also common for people to be using Roon on under spec’ed equipment leading to more frustration.
And for those who don’t use ARC , what happens to ongoing development of the base Roon experience there are many (MANY) outstanding feature requests that would make Roon a better home based audio solution , Box Set management, Bookmark management come to mind. ?
Admittedly I am retired , home based and don’t need ARC.
I understand that ARC development was separated out from the main Roon app
One reason, it doesn’t fix the problem your just masking it. If software is only stable by rebooting the system it’s on everyday something is very very wrong.
I don’t think user count has changed much they all come and go and looking at financial reports available online growth is Roons biggest problem as is staff retention and recruitment. This obviously isn’t the full picture but gives an idea. You can see why KKBox was a big thing for them as it opens up a new market they really need as west is saturated.
Hi all, I just came back from a two week road trip around NSW, Australia. I used ARC every day and it worked perfectly every time through my iPhone and car audio system. I couldn’t be happier and signed up for lifetime subscription to ROON when I came back.
My home setup is with Ethernet connected Nucleus unit playing to KEF LS50W (Wi-Fi), KEF LSX (Ethernet) and I use my iMac, iPhone and iPad (whichever is closest to me) to control the music.
Occasionally I get the odd freeze/lockup (the music might stop at 29/30 secs) this is always fixed with a quick reboot of my modem and doesn’t happen very often, maybe twice in the last year (I think that updating my Apple OS may have been the culprit each time).
Generally though, I couldn’t be happier with the overall product and don’t really like reading these monthly emails as it leaves me thinking that no one is happy with what they are subscribing to.
I do however think the tech support from other members of the community is an invaluable resource to have on hand if required when you do get into tech trouble. People are very gracious and quick to respond and I do feel overall that we are a pretty awesome community of music lovers/techy nerds.
I am an expert on IT and totally agree with you. It should be made absolutely clear that ROCK is the preferred operating system, and that all other operating systems should be considered as experimental only suitable for trialing ROON but not to be used as a long term solution with no garranties provided. This would allow the ROON developers to focus entirely on widening the support for NUC’s and other alternative PC hardware that comes without Operating Systems or can be removed and replaced with ROCK. This is especially true now that Intel has divested itself of the NUC product. This is a good thing as it will create many more suitable devices from a range of manufacturers.
I run a Roon core on Roon Nucleus, Apple Mac Mini (late 2014), and Dell XPS 15 laptop running Windows 11. They are all flawless. I run Roon ARC on the Nucleus only. ARC is not perfect, YET.
EDIT: I am just about as far from being an IT expert as one can be.
Funny how e.g. Windows, let alone many Linux distributions are just fine for running enterprise grade servers, controlling critical infrastructure, and doing pretty much anything else. But running Roon? Nooo, you need something super-special!
Interestingly, looking at support and feedback sections, many a self-proclaimed expert has problems getting Roon working even on a Nucleus (which actually is the one and only official perfect device and OS for Roon), while people who actually know what they are doing successfully run it on laptops, random PCs, and even NAS boxes with minimal issues…
It isn’t Joe bloggs in the street setting up and running enterprise systems is it though? It dedicated professionals with control software infrastructure and processes. Talk about comparing apples and zebras.
In any case, the claim, with appeal to some vague “trust me, I’m an expert” authority, was than only ROCK is an appropriate environment to run Roon. I really would not be too surprised if Joe Blow, who does not mess with convoluted network topologies and other obscure stuff, has fewer reliability issues than many self-proclaimed experts.
But really, there’s a truckload of consumer software that is quite a bit more complex than Roon that runs, and is supported, on multiple general purposes OS’s with no issues, too.
