I started a 14 day trial of Roon last week, and whilst I love the software, there are just too many issues - to the point where it feels like ‘alpha’ software - to justify paying for a subscription.
I hate to say this as I think the concept is fantastic, and clearly everyone involved is very passionate.
Ordinarily, I’d stick with software for a while and try to iron out the issues, but the problems I am having seem to have been around for a long time with no progress made in resolving them. They are not simply minor annoyances - they make the system unusable.
I’ll definitely re-visit in future to see if things have improved, but I wanted to ask - do others have much more stable setups, or is everyone living with such annoyances and issues because of their love for the system?
There are about 250,000 users of Roon. Clearly, those having issues are a tiny minority. The best way to get them resolved is to report them in detail and work with the Support team to resolve them.
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Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
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I don’t think anyone who doesn’t work for Roon can say, “Clearly”. Maybe not even them. And I’m not sure it’s true. Lots of people may be having issues, but not yakking about them. Or feeling that the benefits outweigh them. Or dropping their subscription and new folks are signing up. Or you could be right about it. The point is, we, the, what?, couple hundred? who comment regularly don’t really have enough insight into the churn to say.
I’ve had a lifetime subscription for three years. I’ve never really had any issues. I’ve tinkered and changed with my set-up, moving from my core from a qnap to a NUC that I built myself following the instructions in the knowledge base, swapping various bits of kit in and out and numerous updates and I can’t recall any major issues. Generally, I’ve found a little looking on the knowledge base or this forum has resolved whatever issue I’ve had.
I’ve been on this forum enough to know that other people may not have had the same experience as me but I have to say that my experience of Roon has been really positive.
Throw us a few bones… what issues? Network? Metadata? Importing? Playback? App stability? Endpoint stability? If you want help, you should share your setup details and be more specific.
Just for clarity, as there seem to be some folks getting a bit defensive, understandably - I’m not in the habit of bashing software and that wasn’t my intent. I haved worked in the industry myself for over 20 years, on many large scale and complex software projects. So I totally understand and empathise with regards to the environment and challenges, and really want to get a stable system up and running. What really comes across is the passion of the people involved, which is not always the case.
I have reported issues (with full setup details, model numbers etc.) and contributed on the support forums, and generally it seems like I have been unlucky in hitting a few existing issues that in their own right would be show-stoppers for me. Based on my research of those issues, it seemed like they’d been around for a little while, with some folk getting a bit frustrated.
For example
roon core becoming unresponsive to apps on android and mac
mobile app disconnecting, then requiring multiple restarts to get up and running again
less of an issue, but one which was actually a really nice feature that first captured my attention, issues with chromecast display either not starting at all or occasionally starting after minutes rather than seconds
on my sonos system, I have seemingly stopped playback from roon, only for it to start playing again a few minutes later (for example, when we have switched to watching TV)
I don’t really want to cover too much here as this isn’t really the right forum for it, but I’ve ruled out hardware and networking issues. The logs don’t tell me much, but I’d be happy to share with relevant people.
I’m really just looking for the experience of others - for example, have people been in the same boat, stuck with it and managed to overcome issues over time? Am I a fairly unique case and have just been unlucky? Are others living with the issues because the value of the experience outweighs the workarounds?
I know you said you had ruled out networking but most of those sound like network issues. Roon is to say the least, peculiar in its networking requirements and often doesn’t work on networks that happily support other applications.
@hook_menu_alter Thanks for trying Roon. If you do want to try and make this work, I suggest that you open a new thread in the #support section, detailing your system and networking. Someone from Roon @support will then be able to assist.
Room relies a lot on broadcasting using multicast, a number of network device s try to be clever with this and this disrupts things. (IGMP proxying) Smart switche s sometimes break this for example.
Other audio devices send compressed files and rely on the end point to do the unfolding. Roon decompresse s in the server and sends full PCM to the endpoint which can flood wireless for example.
As roon is the timing master rather than relying on the local device clock (massive simplification ) disruptions in the flow cause more issues than if the endpoint was doing so.
Roon like to keep things “pure” by adhering to standards rather than workarounds which sometimes leads to issues with kit that has done so. Perhaps they take that to a bloody minded degree!
I have Sonos kit too and when I “room proofed” my network any drop outs stopped. In fact if the Sonos drops I use it as a network status indicator
That’s some of it.
I have the same experience as the original poster. The concept behind and the advertising promisses made by Roon are great. The actual experience much less so, to the point that it indeed feels like alpha software. On top of that, support is very slow.
Personnaly, I will continue trying to get the issues ironed out during the next months or year… because, well, if I can get Roon to perform as it is supposed to, it would indeed be “the ultimate music player for music fanatics.”
Thanks for the detailed, response, Ged, really appreciate it!
When you say you “room proofed” the network, what do you mean?
I also have a bit of home automation kit running too, so that could be a factor (though only one smart switch, which I’m going to get rid of in any case).
I wonder if some network partitioning might be in order?
I flooded the house with mesh wireless endpoints. My broadband router is in exactly the wrong place stuck in a corner. Previously I’d tried powerline adapters, wireless extenders etc.
As well as sorting roon out it was in place for my wife and I working from home, which was a bonus.
Everyone has requirements for music apps that roon may or may not meet. I’ve been using roon from launch, near enough, and been on the forum a lot. Feature issues aside I would say that the vast majority of performance issues with Roon are network related followed by hardware issues - terminal kit giving errors, underpowered servers etc.
The other network issue I forgot to mention is that roon absolutely hammers DNS look ups, far more than is reasonable IMHO. Switching to backbone DNS masters such as Google has helped a lot of users. Many users are unable to switch as they use ISP supplied routers which can’t be changed. (ISP supplied routers are also sometimes rubbish which doesn’t help)
Had some dropouts when starting trial but that was running Roon on a fairly old pc. Since putting Roon onto a NUC with SSD drive it has been completely stable. My network is fairly simple so that probably helps.
Hi, I want to say that you are definitely not alone. And its quite easy to feel discouraged.
I had nothing but problems for three months… and I was kicking myself for going for lifetime, but it seems to be stable for me now. ( I used to have reboot my wifi, router, core numerous times a day).
Another side of the coin is all the authors who will say that their experience has been flawless. That is certainly not my perspective.
So good luck, this forum is very helpful, (as long as you ignore the authors who put you down for buying a Lumin Dac).
Hi @4367, if you don’t mind my asking, what did you have to do to get your Roon to behave? I’m in a situation similar to @hook_menu_alter. Right now I’m kicking myself for buying a Nucleus; not the most stable platform at this point in time.
So here’s the thing…I don’t think I actually did anything. I apologize as I realize that doesn’t help you or anyone. From the beginning I would have "tidal loading slowly " message, I would reboot one thing or another. And when I couldn’t make it work, I would just give up and access Tidal through the Lumin App. And it would always work from the Lumin App. In the beginning, I would try for hours and now, if after one reboot of my entire system including router and modem doesn’t work, I just give up.
For the last 3 weeks or so, its been stable. From multiple reboot in one day to zero reboots in three weeks. I didn’t to anything, didn’t adjust settings on the router or take anything off my network.
I don’t know what to say, I totally understand your frustration, as I’ve kinda been in your shoes.
) disruptions in the flow cause more issues than if the endpoint was doing so.