Ubuntu Server 20.04.2 LTS, Dell Precision M4800, Core I7, 16gb
Networking Gear & Setup Details
Netgear GS208 gigabit switches (new)
Google Mesh Wifi, 3AP’s interconnected via gigabit wired
RoonServer wired to network
Network is fast and stable.
Connected Audio Devices
Raspberry PI 4 + HiFiBerry DAC2 Pro, Riopieee (Latest) 3 of 4 endpoints are wired, one is wireless. Issue happens regardless of connection.
Library Size
A few hundred tracks, but I mostly use Tidal streaming
Description of Issue
Music starts, song plays a variable amount, 20 seconds, maybe a minute, music stops. Next song starts, repeat. Started a few weeks back, gotten worse, at this point, it’s quite unacceptable.
Now that Volumio supports Tidal Connect, I’m looking into switching my Raspberry PI’s over to that.
Problem dates from my first experience with Roon, a few months ago. Gotten worse over time. New switches were an attempt to ‘fix’ the problem. Didn’t work. Seems like the longer I run Roon, the more problems I have.
For a paid, and not inexpensive system, I’m just unimpressed. Great idea, but it isn’t stable enough for me to use… and I’m a software engineer. If I can’t make it work, well… my wife has no chance.
Interesting. It certainly sounds like a networking issue, which are not uncommon. I am not familiar enough with the components that you are using to be much help, unfortunately. But between the other users here and @support, I am sure they can get you sorted out.
I am sure you have already reviewed this, but just in case:
Brand new Cat6 cable, brand new Netgear switches (changed out a month ago), Google WiFi, mesh testing shows excellent. I’m getting 900+ Mbps throughput across this network.
You system should be rock solid with all that. Again, one thing just to try to isolate the issue could be to try to play out of the system speakers of your wired Roon Core to see if that works fine, just to move as far up the chain as possible.
I’ve just checked in with our technical team and, to better understand where the issue is stemming from, we were hoping to get a bit more information from you.
Do the drop outs happen with certain file types? Does it only happen when you stream from TIDAL? If you try to play a track from your local library, do you experience the same drop outs?
Could you please try to play the same tracks to System Output, instead of your endpoints?
Could you please share the screenshot of a signal path when playing one of the songs that are dropping out?
If you play from TIDAL directly via the same audio setup, are there any dropouts?
If you temporarily lower the streaming quality (Settings → Services → TIDAL → Edit), are the dropouts still there?
I experienced the same issue today when playing songs from TIDAL with Roon. My Roon Core is in a NUC 10 running ROCK. Just restarted the Roon Server and it hasn’t happened again. Fingers crossed!!!
I occasionally get exactly this problem, but only on two endpoints, a Naim Muso 2 and a Windows PC. Both devices have no problem playing the same content using Tidal directly. Tidal through Roon is frequently flaky on all of my endpoints, with errors such as can’t login to Tidal, disappearing songs (i.e. they used to be available, now they are not) and content not appearing which I know is on Tidal.
I have a couple hundred CD’s ripped to .flac format, but honestly, I don’t listen to them much. 90% or better of the music I listen to is streamed from Tidal. I can’t recall having the problem with .flac files, but, as I said, haven’t done much listening outside of Tidal.
I can play to my phone, or to a PC running Roon. Be happy to do so, but the problem is intermittent, and I’m working (I work from home), so it may be a day or so before I have any info for you.
A few thoughts, outside of my responses to questions…
Seems like the problem goes away if I reboot the Ubuntu box that’s running RoonServer. Problem comes back, after a while. The more I use the system (streaming to multiple rooms), the sooner the problem returns. That system is an I7, 2.8Ghz, with 16GB of Ram, a GB ethernet card… and it’s not doing anything but running bare Ubuntu server, Cockpit (a web based server monitoring package), and RoonServer.
I’m fairly certain the problem lies there. I was running Roon from my Mac Mini M1, when I first started testing, and I never saw this issue until I switched to the Ubuntu box. Unfortunately, the Mini is my primary work desktop, and having RoonServer running on it slowed desktop performance enough that I wanted it elsewhere.
I really don’t want to spend another $500 on a Nuk… but that may be what I end up doing.
Did you by any chance look into this further? Is local library content also affected? Does the issue occur when you are not playing to these Pi’s as a grouped zone?
