Roon server software on Nucleus intermittently restarts or crashes, stopping music playing

Mark_Williams2 · August 6, 2020, 11:42pm

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

Roon Nucleus OS version 1.0 (build 219)

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)

xFinity xFi Gateway cable modem/router Arris Group, inc revision 13 model tg3482g

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

music storage on Netgear ReadyNAS 314
Also using Tidal for streaming
music output to Simaudio Mind 2
all of this is connected by wired ethernet cables and through unmanaged wired switches
I also control the nucleus with the roon app on Samsung Note 10+ (WiFi connected) and/or laptop with windows roon app (also WiFi)

Description Of Issue

intermittently, approximately 1x-2x per day the music stops playing. Whether monitoring with windows app or android, the app shows “unable to connect to server”. Sometimes, after 30 seconds or so, it reconnects and music will start playing again after I hit play on the app. Other times, the only way to get it to reconnect is to hard reboot the nucleus. I started checking the system status page when this happens and operating system shows okay but Roon Server Software either shows uptime of a few seconds or “Not Running”. In the latter case, clicking Start under Roon Server Software usually shows successful restart, but often the roon apps cannot connect and a hard reboot is required. This last happened today, August 6, 2020 at 3:00 pm. This has occurred both with Tidal streaming and playing from the NAS.
Here’s a screenshot with more details:

noris · August 11, 2020, 12:33am

Hi @Mark_Williams2,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for reaching out!

I’m looking over this screenshot you shared and I’m seeing a DNS of 75.75.75.75, which is very strange. Are you by any chance using Comcast Constant Guard?

I wonder if this Comcast firewall might be causing issues with Roon starting properly. Can you please also access the Nucleus logs under Data/RoonServer/Logs and send me a set? You can access by using these instructions.

Mark_Williams2 · August 11, 2020, 4:32am

Hi Noris,

Thank you for responding to my post. I cannot find any mention of Comcast Constant Guard when logging into xfinity or the Gateway device. However, the Gateway appears to have “advanced security” running, so I turned that off and we can see if that makes a difference. Otherwise, here is a link to my log file on OneDrive: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvSLCQIAoE4_joE8O_SAaeKIijrGAA?e=HPAeKt

Mark

noris · August 11, 2020, 9:25pm

Hi @Mark_Williams2,

Thanks for sending those logs over. I do notice the restart, but it is not clear as to why exactly this occurred.

I suggest that we try to perform an OS reinstall to see if this helps with the restart issue, can you please first Backup your Roon database and then give this a try?

Mark_Williams2 · August 11, 2020, 11:35pm

Hi noris,

I have done the OS reinstall and will wait and see if the problem reappears.

Mark

Mark_Williams2 · August 15, 2020, 4:41pm

Hi noris,

I had two sudden music stop events yesterday, so the problem does not appear to be solved. Here is a link to the latest logs: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvSLCQIAoE4_joE9Rwe-yUCYJLGPmg?e=anTs3c
Any new suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
Mark

noris · August 19, 2020, 3:59am

Hi @Mark_Williams2,

Thanks for the new set of logs, I took a look through them, but I am not seeing any errors? It looks like you even had music playing at the time you sent the log file over.

If you encounter any more issues, can you please note the exact local time + date + track so we can find this in the logs? Thanks!

Mark_Williams2 · August 19, 2020, 2:15pm

Hi noris, the error occurred on 8/15 at 1:03 am, or 5:03 UTC on the nucleus. The log item is this: 08/15 05:03:06 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:49/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:06 Info: [stats] 3867mb Virtual, 1801mb Physical, 786mb Managed, 0 Handles, 78 Threads
08/15 05:03:07 Trace: [push] restarting connection (Unable to read data from the transport connection: interrupted.)
08/15 05:03:07 Trace: [push] retrying connection in 16038ms

I assume this is the error - it stopped playing and then started again later.

Thanks,
Mark

noris · August 20, 2020, 7:17pm

Hi @Mark_Williams2,

A push error means your Core lost communication with our servers, typically this can occur at the same time if you experience a networking issue and it looks like connection was re-established a few seconds later.

Looking over the rest of the trace, it looks like this track completed properly and Roon went on to the next one:

08/15 05:02:36 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:18/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:02:36 Info: [stats] 3867mb Virtual, 1801mb Physical, 786mb Managed, 0 Handles, 78 Threads
08/15 05:02:41 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:24/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:02:43 Trace: [Mind 2] [zoneplayer/raat] sync Simaudio MOON MiND: realtime=1706593682910497 rtt=500us offset=1602046777910us delta=160us drift=27014us in 4592.984s (5.882ppm, 21.174ms/hr)
08/15 05:02:46 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:29/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:02:51 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:34/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:02:51 Info: [stats] 3867mb Virtual, 1801mb Physical, 786mb Managed, 0 Handles, 78 Threads
08/15 05:02:56 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:39/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:01 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:44/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:06 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:49/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:06 Info: [stats] 3867mb Virtual, 1801mb Physical, 786mb Managed, 0 Handles, 78 Threads
08/15 05:03:07 Trace: [push] restarting connection (Unable to read data from the transport connection: interrupted.)
08/15 05:03:07 Trace: [push] retrying connection in 16038ms
08/15 05:03:11 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:54/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:14 Trace: [Mind 2] [zoneplayer/raat] sync Simaudio MOON MiND: realtime=1706623852955210 rtt=500us offset=1602046777955us delta=-157us drift=27059us in 4623.1545s (5.853ppm, 21.071ms/hr)
08/15 05:03:16 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:59/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:17 Trace: Successful POST response from https://push.roonlabs.com/push/1/connect
08/15 05:03:17 Trace: [push] connecting to 34.75.249.100:9200
08/15 05:03:17 Trace: [push] connected
08/15 05:03:21 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 3:04/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:21 Info: [stats] 3867mb Virtual, 1801mb Physical, 786mb Managed, 0 Handles, 79 Threads
08/15 05:03:26 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 3:09/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:31 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 3:14/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:36 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 3:19/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:36 Info: [stats] 3867mb Virtual, 1801mb Physical, 786mb Managed, 0 Handles, 79 Threads
08/15 05:03:41 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [100% buf] [PLAYING @ 3:24/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:42 Trace: [prebuffer] short read: 0 / 8820 fill=439236
08/15 05:03:44 Trace: [Mind 2] [zoneplayer/raat] sync Simaudio MOON MiND: realtime=1706654021418266 rtt=1000us offset=1602046778418us delta=244us drift=27522us in 4653.322s (5.915ppm, 21.292ms/hr)
08/15 05:03:46 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [63% buf] [PLAYING @ 3:29/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:51 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [15% buf] [PLAYING @ 3:34/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:51 Info: [stats] 3867mb Virtual, 1801mb Physical, 786mb Managed, 0 Handles, 78 Threads
08/15 05:03:52 Trace: [prebuffer] ready 149940/441000 (34%) @ 0/202 sec
08/15 05:03:56 Trace: [Mind 2] [Lossless, 16/44 FLAC => 16/44] [1% buf] [PLAYING @ 3:39/3:40] Do Nothing - Prong
08/15 05:03:58 Info: [zone Mind 2] OnPlayFeedback OnToNext
08/15 05:03:58 Debug: [zone Mind 2] _Advance

Can you note the time + date + track you see the next issue on and send a new log set?

Mark_Williams2 · August 22, 2020, 12:18am

Hi noris, had problems this afternoon, 3:05 pm my time, so 19:05 UTC. 8/21/2020 Track was Thou - Elimination Rhetoric. It was just stuck at time 1:51 into the song. Eventually it skipped to the next track.

Later, at 3:13 pm, I got the lost connection screen

3:16 pm: checked nucleus status, Roon Server has been up for 2 min 44 s, so must have restarted.

Here are the logs, which contain messages like “08/21 19:05:32 Debug: [prebuffer] sleeping in read – this isn’t good”
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvSLCQIAoE4_joFTYcKP4Fu1VyhXnA?e=XsOe08

noris · August 26, 2020, 4:52am

Hi @Mark_Williams2,

Thanks for those additional timestamps and the new log set, these logs do contain some further clues.

Looking over the “sleeping in read” issue, it looks like your Nucleus was not able to properly buffer the track.

Also, it looks like you have quite a few web exception without response: : System.Net.WebException: Error: NameResolutionFailure traces in logs still. Have you tried to bypass the switches and connect directly to the router yet?

Mark_Williams2 · August 29, 2020, 1:11am

Hi noris,

The xfinity router has only two ethernet ports, so it’s actually impossible to connect the mind2 network player, NAS drive, and Nucleus all to the router at the same time without using switches. Currently the Nucleus is connected directly to the router, but the NAS and mind2 are connected through switches. I tried for example connecting the NAS directly to the router and the Nucleus through the switch, but that didn’t do anything. I can probably temporarily remove the switch that is near the network player and see what that does, but do you have recommendations for how to deal with the lack of ethernet ports on the router besides adding unmanaged switches?

Thanks,

Mark

Mark_Williams2 · August 30, 2020, 10:57pm

Hi noris,

I just checked and the mind2 network player is only connected through one switch. So the topology is router port 1->nucleus, router port 2-> Netgear GS108 Gigabit switch. The mind 2 and NAS are connected to the switch. Other network components (tivos) are connected from router port 2-> Gigabit switch->second Gigabit switch. Let me know if you think any of this would be a problem or if you have suggested changes to try.

noris · September 1, 2020, 5:53pm

Hi @Mark_Williams2,

I’m looking over the thread again and as I mentioned in my first reply, I believe the 75.75.75.75 DNS is causing at least part of the issues here.

Do you have a way to manually specify the DNS address in your router? If so, I would try changing it to Cloudflare DNS, Quad9 or Google DNS.

Mark_Williams2 · February 23, 2021, 6:01pm

Hi noris,

Comcast does not allow changing the DNS on their routers. I spent many months dealing with them, where each time I contacted them they would update firmware, do more fundamental resets, etc. Finally in the end I bought my own router, an ASUS RT-AX88U, and put the comcast/xfinity router/cable modem in bridge mode. This finally solved my problem. So that lesson is not to use comcast hardware! And also you may have been partially correct blaming the DNS as the new router is clearly using different DNS.

Thanks for all of your work on this.

Mark

system · February 25, 2021, 6:01am

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