The question or statement presented above on router 2 and 5 g wireless bands could be a consideration.
I had an issue in the past year, before I had Ethernet installed, where all my endpoints and remotes were using wireless. My wireless kitchen player stopped working while everything else continued to work with Roon.
Of course I thought it was the player and spent hours doing factory resets and firmware updates. Nothing helped to correct the issue. I finally figured out it was an issue with my 3 band router (1 - 2.4G and 2 5G bands). The player would only use the 2G band while everything else was on 5g. The 2g band was not working. Power cycling the router resolved the issue.
Streaming music and the iOS app connection to the Core use two different protocols to communicate. When your iOS device is unable to connect to the Core, this could indicate a multicast issue occurring on your router, which is why knowing your exact network setup details would be extremely helpful.
The crashing we are investigating is one that seemingly starts at random point in time and then the Roon iOS app continues to crash every 15-20 seconds after it is opened, not even making it past the first screen. These crashes are forcible terminations of the app, reverting you back to the lock screen, and it sounds like the symptoms you have here are a bit different.
This is definitely interesting. Iāve gone ahead and enabled diagnostics mode for your iPad, can you please open the Roon app on it and use it for a few minutes and let me know so that I can check for the log report?
Funny I have no trouble with my new iPad Air but could never get a stable behavior on my Android (Motorola Z Force Droid). My Kindle Fire is good 95% of the time but not 100% like my iPad has been. All on WiFi with no changes.
WiFi devices vary a lot in their ability to cope with WiFi congestion. My neighborhood is quite congested. I have a generously provisioned Ubiquiti AmpliFi mesh network. My iPad Pro (9.7in) does pretty well in general, including with Roon. So does my Pixel 3XL phone. OTOH, my Chord 2go (2.4GHz only) goes flaky at the least provocation. Unfortunately, congestion changes from moment to moment, so something can be working for weeks and then go bad for a while when congestion peaks. For those of us in places where COVID-19 WFH is prevalent (like here), peak video call times during the week are especially problematic.
My remote connection using an iPad Air works flawlessly pretty much all of the time, but with one caveat which appears to be related to my home network rather than Roon related. I wonder if you might have a similar issue.
I used to have a TP-Link switch in my network, but 5 or 6 months or so ago I replaced this with a Cisco 2960 switch with additional ports that I now require. I had had no problems whatsoever when using my TP-Link switch, but after replacing it with the Cisco I began to have problems with my iPad remoteās connectivity.
To cut a long story short, the outcome is that whenever my Sky Q TV PVR is connected to the Cisco switch, my iPad remote cannot find and connect to my Roon Rock core which is attached to the same switch. As soon as I disconnect the Sky PVR, the iPad immediately connects to the Roon core. This simply did not happen prior to moving from the TP-Link to Cisco switch. I should add that the problem exists with both my iPad Air and my Windows 10 laptop, both of which connect via wi-fi. I have no problems connecting from my network ethernet connected Windows 10 desktop PC. It connects successfully irrespective of whether or not the Sky Q PVR is connected.
The solution for me is simple, albeit a little irritating. I simply leave the Sky Q PVR disconnected until I need it to be connected to the Internet.
So in summary, my problem appears to be home network and wi-fi related rather than Roon related. I wonder if you have a similar issue?
Why would you say this is not a Roon issue? Is any other app on your iPad refusing to work as intended when this PVR is connected? If all other apps would not work, then I agree it must be a network issue. If all other apps work in a certain environment except Roon I donāt see how you can still blame the environment. It doesnāt make sense to build an entire network environment for the needs of a single app. If the app is so fussy there must be something wrong with it.
My router is permanently switched on, as is the switch.
I simply connect my PVR to the switch via ethernet whenever I want to download movie content quickly (which is very rare), otherwise I disconnect it from the switch. My normal TV/movie access using the Sky Q box is via satellite rather than cable/internet, so not having the box connected to the internet is not a big issue.
Because the problem only arises when I am using the Cisco 2960 switch. I have tried 2 other makes of switch, and the problem does not arise with them. Intuitively, it would appear to me that the problem relates to either my Sky Q box or more likely a setting on my managed switch (which I have configured to default settings).
However, I am not a network engineer or expert and so I may be wrong.
I use my iPad almost exclusively as a music control point or occasionally for simple web browsing, and so donāt have many apps running on it. However, both the Naim app (for my Naim Muso Qb) and Linn Kazoo (which I donāt use now that I have Roon) do still work when the Sky Q box is connected to the Cisco switch.
I have zero problems using my old iPad as a remote or my iPhone. That would lead me to believe that it is not a Room problem or it would be reproducible for everyone. The fact that it works for the vast majority of users means that it is something in your system setup somewhere, not with Roon.
Not necessarily. As I wrote, I have a number of different WiFi devices that behave quite differently with respect to congestion. WiFi is a complex set of protocols and physical layer management, that is handled differently by different hardware and software implementations. Endpoint devices interact in different ways with access points. For those of us who were around when WiFi was originally pushed on a āspareā corner of the spectrum, whatās been surprising is that it hasnāt totally collapsed, given the bandwidth free-for-all that it is based on.
Networking is unfortunately a lot more complicated than you assume here. Most other apps donāt use IP multicast for discovery. Roon does. IP multicast has been a totally standard networking capability for decades but unfortunately some consumer-grade routers and switches have bugs in their IP multicast implementations, maybe because most consumer apps donāt rely much on it. One might argue that, knowing this, Roon should opt for (or back up to) a different discovery mechanism, but on their side Iād argue that they are just using standard TCP/IP capabilities for the best performance and easiest development. I went through a long multicast problem with Roon and Android years ago that got fixed when I disabled IGMP snooping on a managed Netgear switch. Since then, I only use pro routing gear (from Ubiquiti) and non-managed switches. Zero issues.
As I said above the Cisco is your issue as it is with other people. Read the setup guide and you will see that it is not a simple plug and play device.
As you mention you are not an engineer type, and other devices work without issue, so the option seems obvious here.
Although I described myself as not being a network engineer or expert, I did spend my entire working life designing, selecting and implementing large scale IT systems, and so I am not a complete novice when it comes to networks.
There are at least a couple of āobviousā options.
Option 1 is to continue doing what I currently do, and leave the PVR disconnected from the switch except on the very rare occasion where I need it to be connected.
Option 2 (which I assume is your āobvious optionā) would be to discard the Cisco switch and revert back to my TP-Link switch. Unfortunately that would mean purchasing and daisy chaining a 2nd (TP-Link) switch because the reason for my change in the first place was that I needed additional ports.
I am still curious that (as DanMtsn pointed out) it is only the Roon app that has connectivity problems when my PVR is connected to the Cisco switch. Other remote apps such as the Naim app or Linn Kazoo app which also rely on wireless connectivity continue to work perfectly.
However, this really isnāt a big issue for me. My existing work-around works well enough for now, although I may purchase an unmanaged switch with extra ports at some stage in the future.
On the other hand I might opt to invest in a console cable and try re-configuring some of the igmp snooping settings on the Cisco switch.
I explained it before, but here it goes again. Roon uses IP multicast for device discovery. Most other apps donāt AFAIK. Some routers and managed switches donāt handle IP multicast right (or need specific configuration to do so). (Even though Iāve used and for a while programmed for TCP/IP from its early days and Iāve managed my own home networks for decades, IP multicast is still mysterious to me.)
my (limited) understanding is that multicast is required to send identical data to multiple clients simultaneously - ie. when streaming music or video to multiple clients in sync.
I know that I need it turned on in my network for Plex, Rogue Amoebaās Airfoil and HP printers for example
[EDIT] out of interestā¦ I was having constant airplay and Plex issues with an Apple Airport based network - all now resolved after moving to UniFi