Roon Still Does not send track info, album art to Grace Digital Chromecast Device

[Gordon_Cameron]

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

Roon 1.6 (build 416) - MacOs

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

eero

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

https://gracedigital.com/shop/encoreplus/

Description Of Issue

The Encore+ is a chromecast device with a display. Every other player that I have tried (eg spotify, tidal, google play music, amazon music) that sends audio to this device as a chromecast target, sends the track name, album art, duration etc. Roon does not.

I would love it if it did. This is my main listening device in kitchen.

Sidenote : I have higher fidelity devices elsewhere and love Roon in general - I applaud the mission and the software — roon is fantastic ! — and that is why I have financially supported with two annual subs - but it is hard for me to stick with it given changing landscape of Amazon HD, Spotify Premium etc all of which offer seamless integration with other hardware. I’ve stuck with Tidal+Roon, with side subscriptions to Google Play Music and Spotify, and I totally get the focusing on niche audio approach of roon but at the same time I would love more embrace of standards, the ability to integrate with my mobile workflow, internet radio, podcasts etc. Perhaps by wanting to listen to my music everwhere using Roon I am not the target audience?

So when niggly things like this still persist after a year and half and work out of the box with new services automatically, it bothers me when I see the only display on my screen as “Roon” - no status, no name of artist, no album art, no duration.

Likewise, another lingering issue is the one whereby my mac roon server will not go to sleep reliably after playing a few tracks to any roon target - it does so the first time I reboot, but then will not wake on lan, so I have to use a separate app to do that The recommendation seems to be to leave the server awake all the time. OK, I guess ? But other software can wake my mac and send it to sleep when it is not playing !

I appreciate that I should have formally logged these issues earlier, so all of this is to some degree on my for not reporting, but…Does everyone that devs on, and uses Roon use other services when they leave the confines of their primary listening room and leave their server on 24/7 ?

p.s. if you team up with tesla I can only imagine how awesome a user experience you might be able to deliver. Right now the combo of slacker radio, spotify, tune in, usb, bluetooth is… a little chaotic and one thing roon does so well is calm the chaos !

[Henry_McLeod (Henry)]

With regards to the display issue does anything here help?
https://kb.roonlabs.com/Displays
The first thing I see is that the display isn’t automatically active. You need to enable it.

[Gordon_Cameron]

Thanks for response - unfortunately not, it does not register as a display device, even if I fake it into thinking it is one of the supported display device types listed on that page.

[Henry_McLeod (Henry)]

OK, that is a shame. That is something Roon can hopefully look into though. Regarding the always on issue, that is something Roon does with everything it runs on. My answer is a server with no moving parts so although it is active it is completely silent.

[noris]

Hi @Gordon_Cameron,

Thanks for reaching out to us here and appreciate you sticking with Roon in the ever-evolving music landscape. Let’s take a look at some of the points you raised:

@Gordon_Cameron

The Encore+ is a chromecast device with a display. Every other player that I have tried (eg spotify, tidal, google play music, amazon music) that sends audio to this device as a chromecast target, sends the track name, album art, duration etc. Roon does not.

How exactly does the Grade Digital device appear in your Roon Settings -> Audio tab? Can you please share a screenshot of your Settings -> Audio tab and also the Device Setup tab for this device?

@Gordon_Cameron

at the same time I would love more embrace of standards, the ability to integrate with my mobile workflow, internet radio, podcasts etc. Perhaps by wanting to listen to my music everwhere using Roon I am not the target audience?

A Roon mobile solution is on our road-map as noted in the following thread:

Mobile Music Sync and Streaming [On Roadmap]

It would be great to be able to take the music away with us, via sync or via streaming, directly to mobile devices. Space is not an issue for us lucky Android users whom have Micro SD card capability and for the rest, there’s always streaming. I have a great little 24 bit DAC in my Sony Z5 that sounds quite good for a mobile. I came to Roon, specifically because Plex does not have 24 bit sync support and each time I raise it, they get all confused about what it is ultimately saying they alrea…

I can’t comment on a timeline for this, but we are aware of the requests for this capability from users. Please look over the thread, especially the posts from our CTO regarding progress.

@Gordon_Cameron

Likewise, another lingering issue is the one whereby my mac roon server will not go to sleep reliably after playing a few tracks to any roon target

We have been able to reproduce similar behavior in the lab and we have an active ticket pending review by the dev team regarding this issue, it was also reported here:

Roon is preventing Windows from sleeping [Ticket In]

I’m running Roon (Core only, not being used as a local playback source, via RoonServer.exe) on a Windows 10 machine. It is keeping the PC from ever going into sleep mode – is this expected behavior? Kind of annoying. I know that it’s responsible for keeping the PC awake as checking powercfg -requests from the shell shows that RoonAppliance.exe is keeping the system from sleeping. @support Can you clarify if this is an expected behavior, or not? If it is, I can stop troubleshooting it and come u…

@Gordon_Cameron

p.s. if you team up with tesla I can only imagine how awesome a user experience you might be able to deliver. Right now the combo of slacker radio, spotify, tune in, usb, bluetooth is… a little chaotic and one thing roon does so well is calm the chaos !

This would make for a great feature request and would help gauge how many other Roon members are interested in such additions. I can’t comment on when/if this would happen, but please do make your voice heard in our feature request section of this forum.

Thanks!

[Gordon_Cameron]

Thanks so much for responses - opened feature request, and will upload Grace Digital Info shortly.

If the Mac boxes can be made to sleep, the parallel request will then be if Roon can be made to wake them on lan without requiring that I cross wire the launch of Roon to sending a Wake packet using a different app, which is what I have to do right now on my android phone

[noris]

Hi @Gordon_Cameron,

Thanks so much for responses - opened feature request, and will upload Grace Digital Info shortly.

Sounds good!

the parallel request will then be if Roon can be made to wake them on lan without requiring that I cross wire the launch of Roon to sending a Wake packet using a different app, which is what I have to do right now on my android phone

I should note that we have an active feature request regarding WOL and you can read more about our stance on it here and leave any additional feedback:

Server Sleep and Wake on Lan

It can be implemented, but not in a way that we’d be happy with the experience. We do not want to encourage that. You have a workaround by using WoL apps, and Nucleus does support it if you chose to go down that road.