Roon skips through tracks [resolved: reset ultraRendu]

Hello,
I’m having a problem with Roon skipping through my tracks quickly (the successive tracks never play). I’ve scoured the Roon forums and have seen that other people have had similar problems over the years. I’m hoping these past situations will help you identify my specific problem.

Examples of similar problem:
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

Here’s my signal chain:

NUC8i7BEH with (16GB RAM, Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB M.2 SSD) running ROCK
Synology DS415+ NAS populated with 4x6TB WD Red drives
Sonore ultraRendu (with Small Green Computer 7v LPS)
Matrix X-SPDIF 2 USB=to-I2S converter (with Uptone UltraCap LPS-1.2 LPS)
PS Audio DirectStream DAC
NAIM 152 XS preamp
NAIM NAP 250-2 power amp
Wilson Duette speakers
Roon Version 1.7 (build 511)

Here’s my network setup:

Hitron E31N2V1 cable modem (internet)
TP-Link Archer C9 WiFi/Ethernet router
Netgear 8-port Gigabit Ethernet switch GS308v2 (not a smart hub)

Everything in the network is hard-wired via Cat6A ethernet cables.

Here’s a bit more detail about my situation: I’m listening to my system, everything is working normally. I can change music tracks with no problem. Out of the blue I change tracks either by choosing another track while listening to the previous track or by stopping what I’m listening to and then choosing another track, and the music stops playing and the skipping problem begins. Once the problem starts I’ve tried restarting the Roon Core but that doesn’t help. The only way I can fix things is to turn off the power supplies feeding the ultraRendu and Matrix, shut down the NUC, and sometimes shut down the NAS. When I reboot everything Roon will work ok for a while and then I’ll switch to a new track and the problem will reappear. The problem, while intermittent, seems to be happening more often than it was a few weeks ago.

I’ve noticed when I’m playing a long playlist in Roon the problem doesn’t happen. It’s only triggered when I switch tracks manually.

Before I switched to the Matrix, I used the Sonore ultraDigital USB-to-I2S converter in my system and experienced the same track-skipping through files problem.

This problem doesn’t occur in my other Roon zones. And it’s not dependent on bit depth or sampling rates. It can happen when I switch from one Redbook track to another. I don’t use any DSP. In an effort to resolve the problem, I set static IP addresses for the NUC core, the NAS, and the ultraRendu, but it hasn’t had any impact on the behavior.

Please help.

Thanks.

Hello @Paul_Kovit1,

Have you reached out to the Sonore support team regarding this issue? The fact that this behavior does not occur with other playback zones on your network would indicate to me that the issue lies somewhere between the ultraRendu and the connected DAC.

-John

@Paul_Kovit1 Based on my own experience, this usually indicates that Roon is not seeing your DAC. Is your DAC visible under DAC diagnostics from the ultraRendu web page? Does the ultraRendu “see” the Matrix device? Either the ultraRendu is losing connection to the Matrix or the Matrix is losing connection to the DAC, the DAC diagnostics should indicate which is the case.

Thanks. This could be a productive avenue to go down.

When everything is working properly the uRendu is definitely seeing the Matrix (according to DAC Diagnostics). And the signal path in Roon shows the Directstream. I can check it again tomorrow when it breaks.

I’m wondering if Roon Support can run a diagnostic test on my system?

I’ll be happy to reach out to Sonore but it would be helpful to know what Roon is telling me when it starts skipping tracks at the moment (intermittently) that I manually change from one track to another. And why does everything work fine if I put things in the Queue?

Can you run some diagnostics on my system?

Thanks,
Paul

@support
I’m still experiencing my skipping problem. I’ve contacted Jesus at Sonore who has been offering some suggestions but so far nothing has worked to clear up the problem. I’ve tried taking the Matrix out of the mix and connecting the ultra Rendu directly to the DirectStream but that didn’t help. I’ve checked DAC Diagnostics in ultraRendu and the uRendu is always seeing the correct USB connection…either to the Matrix or the DAC itself (when I took the Matrix out of the equation).

Here is an detailed description of the problem:

The issue is always that when I press “play album” or “play track” in Roon I hear nothing and can see on the Roon UI as the music tracks skip quickly from one to the next until it runs through all the album tracks. Once the system has done this it will stay in that state until I power cycle my cable modem wifi/ethernet router, NUC, NAS, ultra Rendu, Matrix and Directstream DAC. I’ve tried just power cycling the uRendu, Matrix and Dac but that never takes things out of the bad state in Roon.

When things are working properly I can sometimes hit “play album” or “play track” in Roon and it will play normally. But eventually I’ll hit one of those buttons and the problem will return. It’s a real drag because shutting down all gear mentioned above and restarting everything takes about 15 minutes.

The only way I’ve gotten Roon to consistently work normally is to hit the “add next” or “add to queue” button. I then go to the queue and choose “play from here”. If the track plays normally I can add anything to the queue and play it from there. So far this has always worked.

What is it about the queue that allows me to play music consistently?

I would appreciate if someone in Support can do some diagnostics on my system.

Hello @Paul_Kovit1,

The next time that your system enters this state, please report back what track you were playing + the local time that the issue occurred.

Once we have this information, I will go ahead and enable diagnostics mode for your account. The next time your Core is active, a set of logs will automatically be generated and uploaded to our servers for analysis.

-John

Thanks John.
When I report back to you with a problem do I need to leave my system in the bad state until you contact me?

Hello,
I wanted to give you an update on my skipping tracks situation. I found a solution in January but wanted to wait for a good amount of time to make sure things would stay stable.

In mid-January I decided to see if switching from my NAS to a local drive with music files would change the skipping behavior. I disabled my two NAS volumes and had Roon locate my local drive. The skipping of tracks went away. I thought at that point that I would have to rethink my architecture and use the NAS solely as a backup. The thought of that made me very unhappy.

But…I then enabled the NAS volumes, disabled the local drive and much to my surprise the skipping didn’t return. I have tried this a couple of times since January and it has always worked.

To sum up, the act of disabling and re-enabling the NAS volumes made the problem vanish. I don’t know if you’ll have an opinion about this…it seems rather odd to me.

But I am much happier now as playback is ROCK solid (pun intended).

The only problem I’m having now is that I get the skipping problem when I enable my Qobuz account. Anything I try to play skips through the tracks and gives me this message: Screen Shot 2020-04-20 at 3.50.47 PM

Any help on that would be appreciated.

Hello,

A problem I have had in the past has reared it’s ugly head again. Once upgrading to version 1.7 (571) stable my skipping problem has recurred. Please refer to my topic from January, 2020:

Here was the “fix” I eventually stumbled on:

Once again Roon is skipping through tracks without playing anything. I tried my “fix” that has worked in the past (disabled NAS volumes, enabled local thumb drive plugged directly into the NUC with ROCK, played a track, disabled thumb drive, re-enabled NAS volumes) but it isn’t working now. So tracks skip whether from my NAS or local drive.

The only way I can get things to work is to turn off everything in the signal chain (DAC, ultraRendu, Matrix, NAS, NUC, WIFI Router, Cable Modem and ethernet switch) then turn everything back on. I can play tracks normally for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then I will choose a track and the skipping starts again.

Here’s my signal chain:

NUC8i7BEH with (16GB RAM, Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB M.2 SSD) running ROCK
Synology DS415+ NAS populated with 4x6TB WD Red drives
Sonore ultraRendu (with Small Green Computer 7v LPS)
Matrix X-SPDIF 2 USB=to-I2S converter (with Uptone UltraCap LPS-1.2 LPS)
PS Audio DirectStream DAC
NAIM 152 XS preamp
NAIM NAP 250-2 power amp
Wilson Duette speakers
Roon Version 1.7 (build 571) stable

Here’s my network setup:

Hitron E31N2V1 cable modem (internet)
TP-Link Archer C9 WiFi/Ethernet router
Netgear 8-port Gigabit Ethernet switch GS308v2 (not a smart hub)

Everything in the network is hard-wired via Cat6A ethernet cables.

Roon works fine on my other zones.

I reinstalled the ROCK operating system Version 1.0 (build 219) stable but that didn’t help.

I never got a reply from Roon support as to why my “fix” worked but it clearly showed me that the problem is with Roon and not my other equipment. Please help.
Thanks,
Paul Kovit

I have the exact same NUC/Rock configuration with my library on the internal Sata drive. I’ve had that same issue once with skipping through all tracks, I power cycled my router and the problem was resolved. Is your library on the internal SSD or the NAS?

Hello @Paul_Kovit1,

When this issue occurs, are you able to play to the system output zone of a Mac or PC on your network?

-John

Yes. I can play it to other zones on the network. Please keep in mind that my system has been working flawlessly since January. This only started with the newest update to Roon.

My library is on the NAS. If I power cycle all the components on my network things will work normally for about 15 minutes. Then I’ll choose something to play and the skipping will resume.

I’ve read on this site that having the local library on the SATA SSD internal to the NUC or a USB attached external SSD is the most reliable or trouble free setup, with the NAS used for backups. Depending on the size of your library and your system setup that could be worth checking out.

@support

Can someone please help me?

My music library is over 6 TBs in size so SSD isn’t going to be practical. Plus I plugged a thumb drive with music files directly into the NUC and had the same skipping problem.

Hi @Paul_Kovit1,

I’ve merged your two threads so we can have all the information in one place.

I have also gone ahead and activated diagnostics mode for your account, and what this action does is automatically upload a log-set to our servers.

Looking over the log report, we see the following error occur:
07/09 15:39:06 Trace: [Sonore ultraRendu @ 192.168.1.110:35083] [raatclient] GOT [134] {"status":"UnexpectedError","message":"RAAT__OUTPUT_PLUGIN_STATUS_FORMAT_NOT_SUPPORTED"}

This error indicates the Rendu is saying that the attached audio device is failing to set up. The Rendu is requesting format change and your PS Audio is failing to do it.

We suggest that you ensure you have the latest firmware installed on your PS Audio DAC, and if it is out of date, try updating to the latest.

Hi Noris,
I confirmed with PS Audio that I have the latest firmware on the PS Audio DAC. In my setup the uRendu feeds a Matrix X-SPDIF 2 which converts USB to I2s and the Matrix feeds the DAC. I took the Matrix offline and connected the uRendu directly to the DAC. Everything played ok for about 15 minutes. I paused the playback then chose another track and the skipping came back. Can you check my logs again?

I’m willing to explore all options but I really think that Roon is having the problem as everything was working correctly before the latest Roon upgrade.

Is there anything else you can think of?
Thanks,
Paul

Hi Noris,

Potential good news here. Last night I completely disconnected the ultraRendu removed the SD card with the software version, reseeded the card, and plugged everything back into the system. Since that time I have experienced no skipping of tracks. I’ll let you know if things go bad again but it looks like the problem occurring when I updated Roon was a coincidence.
Thanks,
Paul

2 Likes