· Roon Server was hanging. I finally had to reinstall Roon Server and now it runs but my precious playlists are gone. I worked on them for a year! It looks like backups were never set up. I downloaded the old RoonServer folder from my system backup, but Roon hangs when I reboot with that folder, so that was the problem, it is somehow corrupt from Roon Server's perspective - but I can open it in file explorer. Is there any way to extract my old playlists from the old RoonServer folder? Thank you.
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· Roon Server on Windows 11 desktop. Network is working fine, all devices are connected with Ethernet.
I am truly sorry to hear about your playlists. I know how much time and effort goes into curating those over a year, and I understand how devastating it is to face the prospect of losing that work.
Based on your description, I have to be candid: if there are no Roon-specific backups (the ones created via Roon’s internal backup tool) and the original RoonServer database folder is causing the software to hang, it is highly likely that the database was already corrupted before you performed the reinstallation.
The fact that you can still browse the folder in File Explorer is, unfortunately, not an indicator of the database’s health. Roon uses a complex, high-performance database structure; if even a small part of that internal structure becomes “malformed” or corrupted, the software will hang or fail to load to prevent further damage.
Corruption before the crash: The “hanging” you experienced initially was likely the first sign that the database integrity had failed.
Database vs. File Explorer: File Explorer only sees the “containers” (the files), but Roon needs to read the specific data inside those files. If that internal data is scrambled, Roon cannot start.
Extraction: Currently, there is no way to manually “extract” playlists directly from the raw database files outside of Roon itself.
Since you have a system backup of the old folder, there is one last “hail mary” we can try, though I want to manage expectations as the success rate for corrupted databases is low:
Close Roon Server completely on your Windows 11 desktop.
Locate your current (new/working) RoonServer folder and rename it to RoonServer_New.
Copy your oldRoonServer folder from your system backup into the directory.
Try to launch Roon. If it hangs again, the corruption is deep enough that the database is unreadable.
If that doesn’t work, the only way forward is to start fresh. I strongly recommend setting up Scheduled Backups immediately in Roon (Settings → Backups) to a USB drive or NAS to ensure this never happens again.
Thank you. If I end Roon Server in Task Manager, replace the Roon Server folder with the old backup folder from Feb 1 (I know it was running on that date) and then restart Roon, the app hangs and requests that I start Roon Server. If I then replace the Feb 1 folder with a copy of the New folder (from re-install), then Roon launches, again with the empty playlists. So the substitution procedure works in principle, but it looks like the old Roon Server folder, even from a date when the app was working, is not readable.
I don’t know my previous Roon Server version number, but has there maybe been a version update in the last few months with a change in the Roon Server file structure that’s interfering with the launch?
Thank you for giving that substitution procedure a try.
To address your question regarding version updates: while we have released updates in the last few months, Roon is explicitly designed to automatically migrate older database structures to the newer format upon launch. A version mismatch would not cause the software to hang or refuse to read a healthy database folder from February.
The fact that the app instantly hangs and requests you to start the server when using the February 1st backup folder unfortunately confirms our worst fears. Even though Roon was seemingly running on that date, the deep-level database corruption had already occurred.
Sometimes, Roon can continue to operate for a while with minor corruption until it hits a critical snag (like trying to read a specifically damaged sector during a reboot or update), at which point it completely locks up to prevent further data loss. This is why the February backup is also unreadable.
I am truly sorry to have to deliver this news, but since neither the most recent corrupted folder nor the February system backup will launch, and because there are no native Roon backups to restore from, the database is permanently corrupted and the playlists cannot be recovered.
I know how devastating it is to lose a year’s worth of curation. Moving forward with your fresh installation, please immediately go to Settings > Backups in Roon and configure a Scheduled Backup to run automatically (ideally to a separate drive or cloud-synced folder). That is the only guaranteed way to protect your library going forward.
Just checking in on this, as I know the last update was a hard one to read. Have you had a chance to move forward with the fresh installation and set up Settings > Backups for a scheduled backup, ideally to a separate drive or cloud-synced folder? If you have any new findings or questions about that setup, reply here and we’ll take a look. Thank you.