Roon server continuously rebooting after startup (ref#PHAB7W)

Support
1

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· Roon is slow, freezing or won’t start

Roon is slow, freezing or won’t start

· Roon won’t start up at all

Tell us what's going on

· Roon server won't start up - Keeps rebooting itself after a few minutes

Tell us about your home network

· tp-link router

2

I can access server logs which seem to be being created every few minutes. How do I send them to you?

3

Hi @Joseph_Cira, welcome back to the community.

Roon Server restarting every few minutes usually points to a crash or a platform issue, and the logs should tell us which one it is. Please upload the log bundle here: Uploader link for Logs, Media Files, Databases.

Before we dig in further, a few details would help us line this up with the logs:

  • Is the server connected by Ethernet or WiFi, and is it going through anything besides the tp-link router, such as a switch or mesh node?
  • Did this start after a recent change, like a software update, hardware change, or network change?
Once you’ve uploaded the logs, let us know roughly when the last reboot happened in your local time, and we can take a closer look around that window.

Thank you! :folded_hands:

4

The server is ethernet connect. I have done no changes. It seemed to occur over night. Log “RoonServer_log.01.txt” would have been the last reboot. I have shut the server down for now.

5

I uploaded my logs yesterday. Are you having trouble locating them?

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Can I Have an update?

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Hey @Joseph_Cira,

Thanks for your patience so far! We’re a small team and try to respond as quickly as possible. We’ve got the logs and had a good look.

The good news is this isn’t your network or the tp-link router. What the logs show is Roon Server running out of usable memory while it loads your library, and the appliance watchdog restarting it when it becomes unresponsive, which is the reboot-every-few-minutes loop you’re seeing.

The key detail: your library is very large, roughly 511,000 tracks spread across six watched USB drives (your WD Elements and WD My Book disks). In the one startup that got furthest, memory climbed to over 8 GB and was still rising, and the server spent 30–60% of its time paused on garbage collection before it got restarted. It never finished loading.

Even though your ROCK has ~15.5 GB of RAM, a library this size pushes it past what it can hold in memory during a scan, so it never reaches a stable state. This most likely tipped over during overnight background processing (Roon does that work between 1–5 AM), which lines up with your “it happened overnight” observation.

A couple of things that would help us most:

  • Can you confirm how many of those six drives are genuinely separate collections? The folder names (/HD Library, /HD Library 0, /HD Library 2, /HD Library 2b, /HD Library 3, /My Music) raise the possibility that some content is being watched from more than one drive and counted twice. Trimming any duplicate watched folders would meaningfully cut the memory load.
  • Roughly how many unique albums/tracks do you believe you actually have? That helps us judge how far over the line we are.
The reliable path back to a stable server is to get that in-memory footprint down, consolidating or removing duplicate/oversized watched folders, and letting it complete one full scan without being restarted. I can walk you through the specifics once we know how those six drives break down.

Another simple test would be to temporarily disable a handful of the watched folders to see how things perform.

We’ll be monitoring for your reply, thank you! :folded_hands:

8

Thank you for getting back to me.

I have a very large library and the six drives are all unique collections. I believe your estimates are close.

I unplugged 2 drives and restarted Roon. But it seems to be doing the same thing and crashing after about 15 minutes.

I am surmising that my rock(Nuc) maybe has reached it’s useful life. Would it be more beneficial to migrate to a new Mac Mini with much more Ram?

Is there a migration method which would preserve my library, playlists etc.?

Are there recommended Mac mini configurations for very large libraries?

I would appreciate all the advice you can provide me on this effort. I need a reliable music system.

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Hey @Joseph_Cira,

Thanks for testing that and for the detailed follow-up. I dug into yesterday’s logs, and they actually clear up why unplugging the drives didn’t change anything.

Roon loads your entire library database into memory at startup, and that database still contains all ~511,000 tracks whether or not the drives are physically attached. Pulling two drives just marks those folders “not ready,” it doesn’t remove them from the library, so the server still tries to load the full collection and runs into the same wall about 15 minutes in. In yesterday’s boot, memory climbed past 4.5 GB and was still rising, with the server spending up to ~30% of its time paused on garbage collection until the appliance watchdog killed it (I can see the SIGTERM in the log). That’s the loop you’re seeing, and it’s a memory/GC problem, not a disk or network one.

For the record, the logs also confirm your collections are genuinely distinct: the six watched folders add up to exactly 511,798 tracks (roughly 102k + 110k + 100k + 81k + 59.5k + 59k). One small note, two of those folders (/HD Library and /My Music) live on the same physical WD Elements drive, but they do appear to hold different music, so this isn’t duplication.

On the ROCK itself. It isn’t that your NUC has failed. A ~511k-track library is simply near the extreme edge of what any single machine handles comfortably, and your ~15.5 GB of RAM doesn’t leave enough headroom for the database plus the background analysis Roon runs overnight (1–5 AM), which is what tipped it over.

Would a Mac mini help? Yes, more RAM genuinely helps a library this size, so a Mac mini is a reasonable move. I’d suggest:

  • An Apple Silicon Mac mini (M-series) with 32 GB of RAM (24 GB at the very least). RAM is the thing that matters most for you.
  • The internal SSD is perfect for the Roon database, keep your music on the external drives.
I do want to be straight with you though: even with 32 GB, 511k tracks is beyond the size we can guarantee runs smoothly, so I'd still recommend trimming or consolidating where you can. The good news is that on a machine with real RAM headroom you'll have the room to get it fully loaded first, then tidy up from there.

Migrating without losing anything. Roon’s Backup & Restore carries over everything, your edits, playlists, favorites, play history, tags, and settings:

  1. On the ROCK, make sure you're on the latest Roon version, then go to Settings > Backups and run a manual backup to a USB drive or NAS (not Dropbox for this, it's too slow for a full migration).
  2. Set up the new Mac mini, install Roon Server, and launch Roon.
  3. At the login screen, choose "Restore a Backup" (bottom-left) instead of logging in, and point it at your backup.
  4. Move your music drives over to the Mac mini and re-point each folder under Settings > Storage. Use the "move your collection" method in the KB below so your edits and history stay attached.
  5. Your license moves automatically when you set up the new server.
Full steps here: [url=https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/migration]Moving Roon to a new Server[/url]

If it’s helpful, once the mini is running I’m happy to look at a fresh set of logs to confirm it’s loading cleanly. We’ll be here, thank you! :folded_hands:

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Thank you for your reply.

I think the Mac Mini is the best path. It has better performance and allow me to see into the sytem to identify things like cpu usage and memory usage.

My understanding is the Mac Mini will page-out pages if actually Ram is an issue whereas the Rock/Nuc is Ram only. Because of this I think the Ram is not as critical but more Ram is always better. The combination of the M-silcon and the SSD storage should be very fast.

I will send you the logs after I get it running.

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Sounds good @Joseph_Cira, we’ll be monitoring for your reply.

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@benjamin

As a result of your analysis, I decided to move my Roon Server from an old Intel NUC to a Mac environment.

I could not purchase a new or refurbished Mac Mini in a timely manor. With the current model nearing end of life, very few are in stock anywhere. New models will become available in the fall.

Instead I installed Roon on a Mac Pro (Intel 3.3GHz Xeon; 48GB) for the time being until a dedicated Mac Mini can be acquired.

I followed your instructions to migrate to the new server. It has been working with no issues since Saturday July 25th.

I will up loading to you a number of the server logs along with a screen capture of the memory usage from the Apple’s Activity monitor.

Although the Core Folder database is 41.42GB the overall memory footprint seems small.

Please review the Logs and comment of what configuration of a Mac Mini is needed for a very large database as well as other oberservations.

Thank you

Joe

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Hi @Joseph_Cira,

I’m glad to hear things have been running smoothly for you on your new Roon Server macOS machine.

For this question, I suggest you ask it over in our Roon Software Discussion Category, where other users with similar setups may be able to chime in:

Let us know if you experience any specific technical issues in the meantime. :+1:

14

Hi @Joseph_Cira,

Dropping in to see if there are any updates on this. Were you able to post your question about the Mac mini configuration for a very large database in the Roon Software Discussion category, and have you noticed any specific technical issues with your new Roon Server macOS machine? If so, send us the details here and we can take a closer look.

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.