Server: NUC8i3BEH with Windows 11 and 32GB RAM and 256GB SSD
Library: QNAP TS-451 with 8TB RAID5
Networking Gear & Setup Details
Server and Library both use Ethernet connection to TP-Link AX11000 router, AT&T 1GB Fiber
Remotes use 5G wireless
Connected Audio Devices
Server is connected to Denon x3700H via HDMI. Remotes use Roland UA-1610, various Google Home speakers, phones, iPad, etc.
Number of Tracks in Library
55,000 tracks
Description of Issue
As the Roon server is running it will slowly use more and more RAM, eventually leading to Roon app becoming a white screen and remotes experiencing slowness and dropouts.
I upgraded from 8GB to 32GB to rule out not having enough RAM but instead it just keeps using more and more of the available memory. I just restarted the Roon app on the server as it had reached nearly 9GB of RAM usage just sitting idle. Restarting the app, everything goes back to normal using about 1.7 - 2.0 GB of RAM, but over about 12 hours or so it will increase to over 7GB or more and just keeps rising until I restart it. When I had 8GB installed it would eventually use almost ALL available RAM.
I had this problem a long time ago and it was fixed (can’t remmber exactly but I thought it was via a new build). But with a recent update (I think), the problem is back and makes it so that I’m restarting the Roon app on the server a couple times a day at least.
4 days and $50 dollars later and not a single acknoweldgement. Is there any curiosity at all from support team as to what is going on here? This is a dedicated Roon server with 32Gb of RAM. The system is kept up to date and otherwise remains untouched. It is just constantly eating more and more RAM and sometimes white-screening until the Roon app is restarted - and then it starts all over again. Surely what is learned from my problem could help someone else, now or down the road. What exactly is the reasonable expection of suuport from Roon for a yearly paying member? The FAQs seem to avoid giving any kind of timeline. I really love Roon, but keeping it running over time has been an off-and-on chore and it seems like I have to get irritated before I get any support. Really unfortunate. Having said, the support staff I’ve dealt with in the past have always been nice and helpful.
No I know they don’t offer faster service to those on Lifetime or Yearly plans. I guess I only mention it in that it seems like a lot of ambiguous silence (no acknowledgement, no ticket number, etc.) considering one has paid over and over committing each time for a full year. But my choice - nobody forced me, I know.
Likely, I’ll spend a bunch of time on this long weekend backing up and resoring databases, uninstalling and reinstalling - troubleshooting something that, under the practically ideal circumstances, should arbuably not need so much time and tinkering devoted to it. And I’m wary of doing this because (if memory serves) previously my problems have required a fix on the Roon side that I have no control over.
I appreciate you trying to help in some way but like what kind of “Windows issue” for instance? It’s been running for three years with no “Windows issue.” This is a plain vanilla Windows 11 install on a supported NUC. And it just runs Roon. Nothing remotely out of the ordinary about its environment. No other software other than Chrome.
I don’t just run Rock because:
A) Windows is a supported platform and on occassion, or in the future, I may want to use the computer for something else.
B) Anecdotally, reading this forum over the years, it seems no platform is spared from having problems with Roon at times. It’s also probably worth noting that, to the best of my recollection, no problem I’ve ever had with Roon has been related to a my Windows installation and was always fixed in a Roon update.
While I am an accountant by education, I still do the IT for our company. I have seen this issue with other Windows installs on company PCs over the years. I cannot tell you why. The solution has been to format the hard drive and reinstall Windows.
My suggestion really has to do with eliminating as many variables as possible. This issue can be caused by a variety of sources (software OS and Apps, firmware, hardware, internet, virus, and on and on). As this is your core and ROON recommends just installing ROCK, I would do that. When you choose to retask the laptop or PC, format the hard drive and install a fresh copy of Windows.
I hope you get it sorted out. These things can drive a person crazy.
Thanks again Jerald. Not to sound defensive, but just for a bit of context - I’ve been building, testing, and using workstation computers since the early 90s and have worked in computer hardware and software design and development for decades, including working closely with Intel, Microsoft, and others. I’ve owned dozens upon dozens of computers at this point, and I use them for professional content creation that is very demanding and requires extremely stable and low-latency performance. I do WAY more demanding things with PCs, and for a living. I’ve never known a Windows issue (especially on a practically untouched vanilla machine) to just chunk away and use all the available RAM unless an app or a driver is misbehaving. I haven’t had to reformat a drive and start over in probably a decade or more. It’s the Roon process that is using this RAM and it resets when it’s restarted, only to start again using up the RAM. Stop running Roon and everything is perfectly normal and stable. Clearly this is a Roon problem (on my environment), and it’s not the first time Roon has had a memory issue like this. I worked with them as they solved a smilar problem maybe a year or two ago. More likely this is a problem with my local database or my Roon installation than it is some problem with Windows. Since this system has worked for the better part of three years, I think I’ll work with the Roon team to find out what’s gone wrong (and we can all learn something perhaps) versus giving up and spending the time and effort to re-do this machine. And again, I read plenty of comments on this forum of people having problems with pure ROCK systems. If it was any kind of guarantee of longterm stability, I might consider it, but just a quick look at this forum shows that clearly it is not.
I’m new to Roon and have been running Roon Server on a Windows 11 computer for the last few months. Performance has never been completely rock solid, but I’ve noticed the same issues you’ve described lately. I got sick of rebooting the machine all the time so I set up the option to boot into Ubuntu Linux instead. I then installed Linux Server, restored my backup, and am now running Linux core instead. I’m in no way a Linux expert, and the whole process took maybe a couple of hours. Windows 11 is still on that machine in case I ever want to boot into it. It’s only been a few hours but my Roon experience is much, much better. Rock solid so far. Let’s hope it stays that way!
It is all up to you. Makes no difference to me. As they say in the stock market, past performance is no guarantee of future performance (Running in Windows). My ROCK-only installation has never had issues. All the best.
Very generally speaking and in my experience… Roon will use whatever RAM it finds but this will not cause a performance issues.
I suggest, your issue is with remote and could be some kind of video driver issue unrelated to RAM usage (although correlated to time).
What I would do with that Windows machine is run Roon Server on it so you can close remote and remove any possible video issues. You’ll need to backup your database. Install server, restore Roon database into Server, and then point your desktop remote at server. Then, close desktop when not needed and let Server do its thing in the background.
Appreciate your response and advice. Roon has always used around 2GB on this machine, for the better part of three years. Suddenly it started using around 4 or 5GB until the computer was using 96% of its RAM and definitely causing stability issues and dropouts. I upped the RAM to 32 GB and it will now use up to 9 or 11GB and will eventually white screen the Roon app and start to drop out. COmputer otherwise is fine…only Roon freaks out. This computer uses the stock video drivers that it has always used that are part of a Roon tested and approved NUC model. I’m curious why this would be a video driver issue.
Also, I’d like to remind everyone that Roon has had these memory eating until unstable issues in the past and they were indeed fixed in subsequent builds. Yes, I CAN stop using Roon in this way, but it has worked for long stretches, is an officially supported Roon enviornment, and seems like the Roon team as well as the Roon community would want to get to the heart of the problem and fix it versus just resorting to other options, since surely I’m not the only person in the world experiencing this (whether or not others have narrowed it down as I have).
Part of the reason I don’t want to run server, is there are many times where I want to use the Roon UI in my living room where the NUC is. I don’t always want to use my phone or some other device to control it and prefer the full mouse/keyboard control.
Understood. I’m glad your ROCK has never had issues. But it’s merely anecdotal - and to your point - no guarantee of future poerformance. Just take a moment, if you care to, and do a search for “ROCK unresponsive” or similar and see the plethora (literally pages upcon pages) of problems people DO have with ROCK.
Again, if this is some Roon problem or a problem in context with my local enviroenement, surely getting to the bottom of it is more beneficial to the Roon team and other Roon users in the long run than seeking time-consuming workarounds. Either Windows is supported or it’s not. Frankly I’ve never understood the reaction to dismiss criticism of the product and start suggesting workarounds beyond what the manufacturer states as being supported. In my line of work, when these kinds of things come up, I’m immediatly curious to find out if this is a problem with the product and look at it as healthy to investigate these issues because there’s no such thing as a purely isolated incident and often looking into one problem can lead to discovery of a larger issue.
You can run desktop and server concurrently. Desktop will discover the Core on the same machine and be happy. From a user perspective its the same experience. The advantage is, if you need to kill the desktop because of some issue, server keeps running. Additionally, if its some UI bug you close the desktop when not using and Server keeps going.
But, yes, you’re right in that what you describe is mostly likely one or more bugs Roon should work towards fixing. But, until that happens, splitting desktop and server may make some of the pain go away. It’s the best the community can suggest on a US holiday weekend.
Thank you and I appreciate that. It’s a good point. And as I’m likely doing the uninstall/reinstall dance anyway, perhaps I’ll install Server and go from there as it seems there’s relatively no downside.
Here’s another user with a current problem that sounds strikingly familiar to my problem (e.g. new, creeping memory usage problem that clears after reboot).
Having said, the support staff I’ve dealt with in the past have always been nice and helpful.