Roon & Tidal Problems - searches and injected pauses

There are two boxes of music now up on Tidal that I can listen to through my phone (i.e., by using the Tidal link without Roon). However, when I try to search for them on Roon so I can hear them through my system, they cannot be found. From the Roon page, if I use the “Browse” : “TIDAL” function (upper left), it will bring me to Tidal, but then re-directs any search there to Roon, and so I cannot find what I am looking for. That is, an attempt at a Tidal search blows me straight back into a Roon search. Unfortunately, the Roon search is incomplete.

Any ideas about how to get into Tidal through Roon and use their search engine rather than Roon’s crummy one, other than by just using the Tidal app sans Roon?

More generally, Roon searches are really quite bad for Classical music. I have to try many ways to find what I am looking for in my library or elsewhere, which gets difficult when you have 15k “albums” and are using Tidal, to boot. The fact that there are no logical operators (or vs. and) is just a small part of the problem.

Another issue – When I play Tidal through Roon, there is always a pause interjected after the first track. This is fine unless there is no break in the music, as in an opera that just goes straight from the overture to singing. HOWEVER, if I play Tidal without Roon through the Tidal app, this does not occur. Roon as an intermediary needs to fix this if they want to be the gateway to our music.

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Frustrating, huh?

I’ve been told that roon has to wait for data dumps from Tidal and that can cause a delay updating their library.

Today, I’m missing the new Ben Harper album, the new Beck single and a few others.

Sorry I can’t be more helpful.

This has been discussed so many times over the years. For Roon to work they way it does, allow the merging of streaming and local, allow editing of albums from Tidal and Qobuz it hosts its own database of Tidal and Qobuz. These are updated at regular intervals during the week by the streaming services and synced to Roon. Often
some new releases drop later than one of these syncs and have to wait for the next one which is usually in a few days time. Yes it can be frustrating but this is how Roon works to give us the other features it can do that nothing else can, it’s a minor trade off.

As for search yes it’s not the best if your looking for new music sometimes but it’s way better than it was.

I don’t get any pauses using Tidal so this may well be related to you setup in some way. That is definitely not normal behaviour. What is your playback chain that this is happening on?

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I hear you and I get the logic… But please can we make it sync on a Friday! New albums typical drop on Friday’s – for example I still can’t see the new Foals album 48h later so have resorted to buying it from HD tracks. Annoying when I’m already paying over $30 a month for Tidal.

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They might be released on Friday but they are often available in advance and sent before but some drop last minute. It does do a sync on Friday I think but it takes time for this to be all updated in the system it’s not instant as it’s a lot of data. Sometimes they trickle through on Sunday/Monday. If not there by then raise a support ticket in the metadata section and flag Joel.

In agreement. A little annoying not being able to listen to latest releases, like Foals, via Roon/Tidal. However, Roon/Qobuz does show Foals latest album. Think this is a Tidal issue not a Roon issue.

It’s a Roon thing but not a bug as explained, each service has different albums that don’t make it for the weekend release. It depends on how and when they collate it per service and send it on. If it doesnt show up after Monday then that may indicate their is an issue, but this at the moment is fairly normal behaviour. I have had many not show in Qobuz but in Tidal and vice versa from week to week.

Thanks, Kursten, for the helpful information! I am not sure why some folks need to get tetchy in responses, e.g., “this has been discussed so many times over the years.” Not everyone has subscribed to Roon (and either Tidal or Qobuz) for years, generally those who are starting need the most help, and even those who have subscribed for some time might come here only when they need help with an issue, as I do.

Yes, Tidal used alone on my system does not insert a pause after the first track on an album, while Roon always does. On the other hand, I have noticed frequent micro-dropouts on Tidal alone, which Roon does not do. This makes me wonder if Roon buffers the Tidal stream somehow before feeding it to me.

In order to resolve issues of the Roon + Tidal pause after first tracks, here is a brief description of my set-up: My router is hardwired to a Nucleus+, in turn wired to an external hard-drive (which resolved awful loading problems from a QNAP NAS – I do not recommend the NAS route); I stream from the router via a BluSound Node 2i; the Node 2i in turn is hooked up to a DAC and ultimately to my amp.

I assume that when I stream Tidal directly, the pathway is directly router-Node 2i-DAC-etc. In contrast, I assume that when I use Roon to channel Tidal, the Nucleus+, where the Roon software resides, is also involved.

As for the search engine: I now understand the updated dump issue – thanks again for that. I am surprised that the streaming services supply that information to Roon; it must be a lot of work. But even with my own files the Roon search function is primitive. Like many other people, I slowly ripped files and entered metadata over the years, beginning with iTunes and then moving to other ripping software. I used long word streams for single artist entries in the form: Soloist 1, Soloist 2, Soloist 3, etc.; Conductor: Orchestra, Chorus. The search engine for a simple program like iTunes will find, say, “Soloist 3” if I search using that term. But Roon won’t. It seems to do ordered “and” searches rather than “or” searches. There are times, too, that a “not” added to a search would be helpful at burrowing down. As another example, for years I have catalogued album titles in the format: COMPOSER: Work Title (Conductor Year). If I do a search for “COMPOSER Conductor,” my files might not come up. Same with “COMPOSER Work Conductor.” Simply, the syntax of Roon searches is neither clear to me nor flexible. With 9+ Tb of music in 300,000 tracks, a better library search engine would help me considerably. (I try to hand-enter artist and other metadata on Roon as I listen to something or rip new files, but this is a work in progress and will take me years to conclude.)

In any case, the search engine seems to me to be a poor aspect of a wonderful product. It needs to allow logical operators, be able to pick out portions of long text streams during searches, and in general be more inclusive in results. Perhaps even listing results according to degree (i.e., %) of match, as many actual library search engines do.

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Find the album on Tidal, add to a playlist, and then sync to Roon. Not perfect, but at least you can listen.

Agree on classical search.

Also, i dont have any gap issues with Tidal using my Synology NAS to Bowers Formation Duo or network receiver. I do have issues, however, using chromecast audio. Never got that to work properly

Any reason your not using the composer browser and use the funnel filter of focus? . These both work better for this type of searches if it’s in your library. The big search is across your Roon library and all the services you subscribe to, so is more generic and is just basic keywords with their own logic to give the hits. It’s not the best for directly searching your library as your finding. Focus and the filter in each section work better here. @Mike_O_Neill may be able to give better advice as he’s a big classical listener.

There have been many threads on the woes of search. It’s improved lately as they have been listening but still has a long way to go and is a work in progress.

This pause on the first track, is Roon pausing and you have to restart it playing or is their just a long gap and then it starts? I used to have a Node 2i and never had any issues with playback like you mention and if your having issues with Tidal with micro stutter when native to the node2i it points to a local issue.

Have you raised a support thread about this behaviour in the support section? I would as they might be able to see in the logs whats causing it it’s actually Roon causing it. It could be the node 2i or your DAC not liking the input. What’s your DAC? Have you tried to use a different cable? Perhaps use one output connected at a time and see if it remedies it and swap the connection type to see if that helps. Is the node 2i using ethernet or wireless?

We all want a better product, I am pretty vocal on here about it’s faults and foibles but it’s also good to have an understanding of why Roon works in particular ways before saying its just broken, when it isn’t. A look over the knowledge base can help here.

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Yeah I get it but am starting to wonder if there isn’t a bigger issue. “New Releases for You’ section under Home show the most recent Album release as 20th May - Is valence really telling me that nothing released in the last 4 weeks would be of interest to me, or is it just not working as it should?

When I go into the Tidal section it does show me new Albums from the 17th June (last Friday) so it is syncing… just not everything. I’ve tried clearing my Roon Server cache which made no difference. Not sure who is at fault but something ain’t right.

NRFY is always behind if I am honest. It tends to update a little later than release day. Likely as its still processing all data. Like a lot of Valence it tends to get stuck and is not an especially stellar feature in my opinion , given Roon sells it so much. What setting do you have it on relevance or latest? Relevance tends to be very hit and miss not sure their algorithm works at all.

Mines not showing anything new at all when set to Relevance

Latest does

Why it doesn’t show Foals in relevance is a mystery to me as I have lots of their albums in my collection. But I think the AI still needs a lot of work and isn’t as advanced as we are led to believe. Same issues crop up with radio where it gets stuck in a rut.

Sorry i am not going to be much help as i am on holiday away from my Roon setup and a keyboard

But

First and foremost make sure the max no of albums are IDed by Roon. If Roon IDs themax amount of Metadata is retrieved

Keep box sets as sets avoid splitting off albums, Roon will often struggle to ID if split. Use the focus and filter tools on a box

Read the KB on Tags and bookmarks

I use several ways to get to stuff. I have 5k albums 60% Classical

1 i keep my top 30ish favorite classical artists in a tag , and another to store New Artists and another fir New Releases

2 Go Composer then use Focus, filter funnel and my library icon to limit the list

3 Go Composition add Composer and say Sonata . Then create a Bookmark say Beethoven Piano Sonata

Keep bookmarks to a few as they become amess to manage

The Composer view works, sort by no of composition then use Discography and filer tool etc

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, it did not work when I tried it. Roon shows the playlist, but it has zero tracks.

Foals still not showing 5 days after release, something fishy going on here. I’ll open a support ticket to try and solve this…