Roon ROCK performance degradation after recent update (ref#HJG1QC)

Support
1

What app are you having the slowness issue with?

· Roon

What kind of performance/speed issue are you experiencing?

· Tracks take a long time to play

Please try to reboot your Roon Server

· Yes, rebooting helps, but the issue returns after some time

Please try to reboot your networking gear (Router/Switches/etc.)

· No, the issue is still the same even after a reboot

Is there any change in behavior if you try to navigate to Roon Settings -> Library and set both Background and On-Demand Audio Analysis to Throttled or Off?

· No, the issue is still the same

Does the issue happen on multiple Roon Remotes (controllers) or just one?

· I only have one Roon remote to test with

Please try to restart your Roon Remote (controller) app

· No, the issue is still the same even after a restart

What is the operating system of your Roon Remote (controller)?

· Android

Reinstall Mobile Roon Remote App

· No, I am still having the issue even after reinstalling

Router Domain Name System (DNS) change

· I was able to change my router's DNS servers but it did not help

What is the operating system of your Roon Server host machine?

· Roon Optimized Core Kit (ROCK)

Timestamp of issue occurrences

· Happens 24/7

Describe the issue

My Roon Rock has been slowing to a crawl over the last 6 months. Now it can take 10-15 seconds to start playing a new album. My Rock is a Nuc 11, Core i7 16GB memory. 44K tracks, many high resolution. 2 months ago I did a hard reset of the machine, backing everything up and reinstalling Rock, then copying library back, and restoring backup. This helped for a short period. The latest update seems to have slowed it down even further. I've timed it to take between 10 and 12 seconds to play a new album after hitting Play Now.

Describe your network setup

Comcast, Hitron CODA56 DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem, Ubiquity 2.5Gbps, Cat 8 wiring. Typical speeds, 1.2Gbps down, 100GPS up.

2

I’ll add that I am currently using the HiFi Rose RS 130 streaming transport as Roon Endpoint. I have also used an Esoteric Streamer/Dac and I had the same problem.

3

Hey @Tuckers,

Thanks for the details. We’ve activated diagnostics on your ROCK, and while your library is fairly small at under 50k tracks, it does look like a significant amount of background work is happening.

Do you notice any background activity shown in the top right corner of Roon? Please go to Roon Settings > Library and set both Background Audio Analysis and On-Demand Audio Analysis to Off or Throttled, then see whether that helps.

Diagnostics also show poor connection errors, which means there is not enough speed to stream the tracks you want. That is unexpected given the 1.2 Gbps down speed you mentioned. Which DNS provider did you change to, can you try to use Cloudflare (1.1.1.1)?

5

Hey @Tuckers,

Just checking in on this. Have you had a chance to see whether there is still background activity showing in the top right corner of Roon, and to try setting both Background Audio Analysis and On-Demand Audio Analysis under Roon Settings > Library to Off or Throttled? We also asked about the DNS change, so if you can let us know which provider you switched to, and whether Cloudflare DNS at 1.1.1.1 makes any difference, that would help us narrow down the poor connection errors we’re seeing. Additionally, we released performance improvements with a new Roon build, which may help in your case. Let us know what you’re seeing.

Please note, if we don’t hear back from you this thread may close automatically soon. If the thread auto-closes and you need further assistance, please submit a reopen support request via the technical support help form below and specify that the issue should be reopened. Thank you.

6

I was affected a bit by the issue yesterday, Roon stopped playing after I reboot with the bad update, and the Roon Server showed as stopped. After rebooting, it still showed stopped, but I was able to use Roon. Today the hotfix worked. Just mentioning this as more data for you.

I have changed the background analysis to all types without a noticable change in performance. I currently have it scheduled outside of my hours.

I am not getting a lag in starting new tracks or in playlists currently when changing to any different resolutions. This is regardless of the state of background analysis, or the DNS settings.

I changed the DNS to 1.1.1.1. My company does not allow us to use Cloudflare for DNS for security reasons, but I will leave it there for now.

I still get the spinning circle in top right. I’ve had that constantly for at least 6 months, if not a year. It doesn’t change with any of the background settings or the DNS changes. I reboot the system after each change as well.

Thanks

7

Hey @Tuckers,

Thanks for the update, John, and for the extra data point on the hotfix, that’s useful.

Good news on the lag: I pulled your logs and measured every track start across the last week. On the current build the median time from play to audio is under a second, with the worst case six seconds, and the only 30-second-plus starts in the whole capture are on the older build you were running on 7/31. That matches what you’re hearing, so I’m considering the playback delay closed.

On the spinner, I found it, and it’s not DNS or your network. Your DNS resolution is clean in every log I have, before and after the 1.1.1.1 change, so please feel free to put your corporate resolver back; it wasn’t contributing.

What’s actually keeping the indicator lit is album identification. You have roughly 730 albums queued for identification that never finish, the queue retries them every few minutes and the count is slowly growing rather than shrinking. That’s about a fifth of your library, and it looks to be mostly vinyl rips, audiophile reissues, and classical box sets, which are the hardest things for our metadata service to match. Because that work never completes, the indicator never goes idle, which is exactly why nothing you changed made a difference.

Two things would help me confirm and two things I’d like you to try:

Could you send me a screenshot of your Albums view filtered to “Unidentified,” and one of whatever appears when you tap the spinning indicator itself? The second one names the specific task, which nails this down.

Then, when you have a moment:

First, your scheduled backup runs at 5am, right in the middle of your 4am–11am background window, and backups briefly pause Roon’s internal work threads. Move the backup to around 2am so the two stop colliding.

Second, and I know this is the opposite of what you’ve been doing, try opening the background window to all hours for about two days. That queue can only make progress inside the window, and seven hours a night clearly isn’t enough to get through it. Your server has plenty of headroom on the current build, so I don’t expect you’ll notice it. If the indicator goes quiet once the backlog clears, you can throttle it back afterward.

Let me know if this helps! :+1: