Roon remote not finding DAC/AMP connected to MacBook Pro [Resolved - Two Routers]

Hello,
I am using Roon with my core on an iMac in my office, and a remote on my MacBook Pro in my bedroom. I have a SMSL M8 DAC connected to the MacBook Prom, which is feeding an iFi iCan headphone amp connected to the M8, The m8 is registered as my output device on System Preferences and works well with, say iTunes, for example. But Roon is having none of it. I don’t know why but it just isn’t reccognizing the DAC today. I have used the same setup in the past successfully, as recently as last night, but today it isn’t finding the DAC. I have the DAC connected directly to a USB port on the MacBook Pro and it works, as I said, just not with Roon.

One additional note. I cannot download from the Roon website. When I try, nothing happens. I thought I could just reinstall the app, but I cannot download it. UPDATE: I TRIED A DIFFERENT BROWSER AND SUCCESSFULLY DOWNLOADED THE APP. But it did not fix the problem.

Hi @Stephen_McLeod ---- Thank you for the report and sharing your feedback with us.

Moving forward, can you please provide the following:

  • My assumption is that you’ve reinstalled the application on the MacBook pro, acting as a Roon remote. Please confirm.

  • While I understand that the MBP is unable to see the device (i.e SMSL M8 DAC), have you confirmed if the iMac hosting your Core can see the MBP remote with the device attached to it? Is it possible you have this setup as a “private zone”?

  • During your troubleshooting have you tried…

    • Mounting the M8 to the core machine to verify that it can be recognized by the application?

    • Testing with just the iFi headphone amp connected to the MacBook Pro remote?

-Eric

Hello Eric, I think you misunderstood my question. The MacBook recognizes the DAC. That’s what I wanted to conmunicate by saying that the M8 works with the MBP well with iTunes, but not Roon. So yes, the MBP recognizes the DAC It’s right there in the Systems Preferences sound menu under output, I chose it so that’s the audio for the whole computer. Mu problem is that Roon doesn;t give me the opportunity, in Audio Settings, to ENABLE it. It does not appear at all. It is not being accounted by Roon. In the Audio Settings on Roon, the only available zones are those connected to my core, not the MBP. There are no options for the MBP. I don’t know why the audio settings on the are just today not seeing anything but the core. I have used it before with no problem.

The Roon Core, iMac, needs to query your MBP to add the audio options. It doesn’t matter that the audio is local to the Roon Control PC (the MBP), it matters that the server (iMac) can query the Roon Remote machine so it can see the audio options. If the Server cannot query (or does not get a response from) the remote PC then it does not display the local audio options on the remote PC.

My guess is that some MAC update changed firewall/anti-virus settings such that the Roon query process is being blocked. Verify that both Roon and RAAT are allowed to go through both ways on the machine’s firewall/anti-virus.

Okay. How do I do that?

The first step is to turn the firewall off to test. If things then begin working, the next step would be to re-enable the firewall but enter permissions for the Roon program and the RAAT program so that in and out communications are allowed.

Please review the Troubleshooting section here: https://kb.roonlabs.com/Why_can't_Roon_Remote_Connect%3F

And see this article for information about the MAC and firewall settings. https://www.wikihow.com/Turn-Off-Mac-Firewall

There is no firewall running on my computer. The IP addresses are correct.
I don’t know anything about permissions or how to access them or even what they are.

Hi @Stephen_McLeod ---- Thank you for the follow up. Please allow me to clarify some points/suggestions being made here by myself and others.

“My assumption is that you’ve reinstalled the application on the MacBook pro, acting as a Roon remote. Please confirm.”

  • Please confirm.

“While I understand that the MBP is unable to see the device (i.e SMSL M8 DAC), have you confirmed if the iMac hosting your Core can see the MBP remote with the device attached to it? Is it possible you have this setup as a “private zone”?”

  • I understand that the device is being recognized on the OS level, my comment here was meant specifically in regard to Roon. In front of me currently I have a Macbook Air (hosting Roon) and a MacBook Pro (Roon remote) with a Schiit Bifrost and PS Audio PerfectWave mounted to it via USB. I am curious as to what your core computer (iMac) is showing, in regard to the remote computer (MacBook Pro) with the DAC mounted to it.

“Mounting the M8 to the core machine to verify that it can be recognized by the application?”

  • Again. I am not so much worried about the OS recognizing this device, my interest is if it can be recognized by the application.

“Testing with just the iFi headphone amp connected to the MacBook Pro remote?”

  • Have you verified if the remote computer can pick up the iFi device, in the application?

Your latest: “There is no firewall running on my computer. The IP addresses are correct.
I don’t know anything about permissions or how to access them or even what they are.”

  • To verify you do not have any active firewalls or antivirus application running on the MacBook Pro remote, correct?

  • “Step 6” in the link provided by @Rugby highlights how to enter permissions in OSX’s firewall settings. From a google search: “user permissions”

-Eric

Yes I reinstalled Roon on the MBP.
I just connected the M8/iFi iCan DAC/Amp to the core (iMac) and it shows in Roon’s Audio settings on my core (iMac) as “xCore USB Audio 2.0”

I cannot connect the iFi iCan to the MBP or the iMac - it only has RCA IN connectors. I connect the M8 (DAC) to the iFi iCan (AMP) with RCA. THey cannot be used separately as the M8 doesn’t have a headphone jack/.

There is no firewall on the computer or any active antivirus app running on the MBP. Step six refers to how to tweak a firewall, but there is not a firewall running on either my iMac (Core) or on the MBP (remote). I will post this and then I’ll go remount the M8/iFi iCan DAC/Amp to the MBP and take a screen shot of the audio settings there.

Now I am back on the MBP. I actually had to reinstall Roon again because it was not in my list of applications. But that’s done and here is the audio settings on the MPB:

As you can see, there is nothing seen by ROON as connected in the Network, although the MBP OS is recognizing it.

Hi @Stephen_McLeod ---- Thank you for the follow up(s). Appreciated!

Is this a complete screenshot of your “audio” tab on the MPB? I see that the “Connected to this Mac” field is missing. If the device is mounted to the MBP directly, it would not appear under “Networked”.

From my MBP Remote:

Furthermore, if I am not mistaken this would be the second time you’ve had re-install the Roon application on this device. What is going on that is prompting the re-installs? The first time through seemed to be apart of a troubleshooting exercise, but how about this time? The application shouldn’t just vanish from the computer randomly.

-Eric

First, the field “Connected to this Mac” doesn’t appear in the second screenshot because it isn’t there. This is a screen shot of the MBP, which is not the Core but the remote. I don’t understand what you said about networked. This is the way the audio settings appear on my remote.

As to the issue of the program reinstalling, I probably did it a couple of times because I did not uninstall correctly. That’s not an issue.

Hi @Stephen_McLeod ---- Thanks for getting back to me.

The “connected to this MAC” field should be present on your remote, even if Roon is missing the USB mounted DAC from the zone listing. You SHOULD always have the options for “system output” and “built-in output”, as you see in my screenshot taken from my MBP remote.

Furthermore, as mentioned in my previous, any device mounted directly to the remote via USB (Your first post: “I have the DAC connected directly to a USB port on the MacBook Pro…”) should be appearing under “connected to this Mac”. As also seen in my screenshot, both the PerfectWave and Bifrost are mounted to my MBP remote via USB, so there is no networking involved with those connection. Hence why the units are being recognized under “connected to this Mac” and not under “networked”. I have a B&W A7 that I use from time to time, and this device appears under “networked” because it is using WiFi to communicate with Roon.

If the remote device is missing the mentioned “connected to this MAC” field completely, there is definitely something wrong with that device in regard to Roon. When you are performing these uninstalls and reinstalls, how are you going about it?

-Eric

I use am app called Clean My Mac which is part of the Setapp group. I use it regularly for maintenance and it has an uninstall function that I use when I want to uninstall anything. It supposedly gets rid of all components and files associated with the application it is working on. However the copy of Roon that is on the MBP now is just downloaded from the Internet yesterday.

I also add that lately the Remote doesn’t recognize the Core when I load it on the MBP, and the way round that problem has been to enter the IP address in the blank field that comes up when I click on the link “Why can’t I connect …” That may be why it’s picking up the CORE audio settings exclusively although that’s just a guess.

@Stephen_McLeod ---- Moving forward, I would like to get the MacBook Pro acting as your remote in a completely fresh “state” before we continue troubleshooting.

  • Please close the Roon application on all of your devices.

  • On the Macbook Pro “remote”… please delete your "Roon"and “RAATServer folders”.

    • Open Finder and click “Go” in the top bar.
    • Hold down the Alt key to unhide the “Library” folder.
    • Click the Library folder.
    • Find and delete, the “Roon” and “RAATServer” folders. Then, empty the “trash bin”.
  • Grab a new copy of “Roon” from our website and install it on the Macbook Pro.

  • Launch the application and connect to your iMac hosting your Roon core.

-Eric

Sounds like a plan. I’m on it.

Okay, I think the problem is solved. Here’s what happened. I recently got a new router made by Google called the Onhub. The router I had before, sold by Verizon, is a combination modem/router, so in that kind of setup, the Onhub was connected to the old modem, which also happened to have a router on board. Chaos ensued. Because now I had two separate WIFI sources, even though, in actuality, there is only one. I have had the Onhub now for a couple of months and I had thought I had trained all my devices to connect to Onhub and ignore the old (Fros) router, but somehow the MBP picked up the Fios Router and so the entire phenomenon was caused by the MBP being connected to FIOS while the core was connected to Onhub. That’s why I had to type in an IP address and why, when I did so, it went to the core,. So, the IP address of the MPB is different from the Coer? Well that’s above my head, but as soon as I got everyone on the same router, the problem went away. Thanks to Eric and everyone for your patience and help. Now to my other problem…

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