· Roon stuttering then skipping on Qobuz 192 kHz I'm playing Qobuz streaming to a HiFi Rose RS150b through my gaming PC. Everything in the loop is ethernet Cat 6 - from the modem to my router (Linksys MX4000, with an AP in another room that is a wired backhaul) to my gaming PC, and the HiFi Rose is also connected via ethernet and then RCA to my integrated amp.
Every now and then on 192 kHz songs only via Qobuz, the song starts to stutter, then pause, and then automatically skips to the next song on the album. I thought I traced this to my active protection in Acronis True Image by exempting all Roon related folders from protection (which made it better for a while), but it just happened again. Now I'm at a loss and would welcome some feedback. I'm happy to answer and questions and send some logs.
Tell us about your home network
· Router is Linksys MX4000 fed by a Verizon FIOS ONT modem at 1Gbit, all streaming/Roon server points are ethernet and not Wi-Fi. There's a Netgear 8 port gigabit switch connected to the router. There's a single wired backhaul MX4000 access point upstairs. No VPN.
Thanks for writing in and for sharing your report! Sorry to hear about your playback issues.
If you could, please bring your Roon Server back online, and we’ll enable diagnostic mode to take a closer look.
In the meantime, a few next things to test:
If your Netgear switch is managed, disable IEEE 802.3az in the settings. If it's unmanaged, try bypassing the switch temporarily by plugging both the PC and the HiFi Rose directly into the Linksys router to see if the skipping stops.
Completely disable Acronis Active Protection (not just folder exemptions) for a 2-hour listening session. If the stuttering vanishes, you know the Acronis kernel driver is delaying the RAAT (Roon Advanced Audio Transport) packets just long enough to cause a buffer underrun.
Go to: Roon Settings > Audio > HiFi Rose (via the Gear icon) > Device Setup.
Increase the "Max Sample Rate" (as a test): Cap it at 96 kHz temporarily. If the problem disappears, we've confirmed it's a bandwidth/timing issue specific to the 192 kHz throughput.
Resync Delay: Try setting a 500ms - 1000ms Resync Delay. This gives the DAC a moment to lock onto the clock signal before the audio starts flowing, which can prevent the "skip to next track" failure.
We’ll be on standby for your reply and results. Thank you! 🙏
Thank you for the reply. Server is back online and I’ll leave it up. I ran through the troubleshooting:
Netgear switch is unmanaged. I had the issue prior to introducing the switch as well.
Disabled Acronis active protection and it still happened.
Capped sample rate at 96 kHz and the error reproduced. Did both 500ms and 1000ms delays and it reproduced the error.
The stuttering was longer prior to the skip to next track after these implantations, so could be on to something. Let me know if you’d like some logs. Thank you.
Thank you for keeping your Roon server online. We’ve analyzed the diagnostics report, and it points us to the likely source of the issue.
Findings
The logs show that your Core is struggling to maintain a sufficient download speed from the Qobuz servers. We are seeing repeated warnings where the connection speed drops to around 5.2 Mbps.
To put this in perspective:
192kHz/24bit content typically requires a stable stream of 8–9 Mbps.
96kHz/24bit content usually needs 4–5 Mbps.
At ~5.2 Mbps, your connection is "choking" on 192kHz files, causing the buffer to empty faster than it can refill (Buffer Underrun). This forces Roon to skip to the next track. Since the speed is hovering right around the limit for 96kHz, that explains why capping the sample rate didn't fully resolve the issue.
Even though you have a fast 1Gbit connection, the specific route between your ISP (Verizon) and Qobuz’s servers (CDN) seems to be suffering from packet loss or latency.
Recommended Steps
To fix this routing issue, please try the following:
Change DNS Settings
Often, ISPs default to their own DNS servers which can route you to a slower or overloaded Qobuz server. Please try changing the DNS settings on your Router or your Gaming PC (Core) to a public DNS:
Cloudflare: 1.1.1.1 (Primary) and 1.0.0.1 (Secondary)
Google: 8.8.8.8 (Primary) and 8.8.4.4 (Secondary)
After applying this, give the Core a reboot.
Disable IPv6
If IPv6 is enabled on your Gaming PC’s network adapter, please try disabling it temporarily. Roon sometimes performs better with streaming services over a pure IPv4 connection.
The "CD Quality" Test
To confirm our theory, please temporarily set your Qobuz streaming quality to CD (16bit/44.1kHz) in Settings > Services > Qobuz.
If the stuttering stops completely, we know for certain that your hardware setup is perfect, and the issue is strictly limited to the external bandwidth available from Qobuz at this moment.
Please let us know how those changes work for you.