This has been discussed a few times before but needs new attention from Roon under the current threat of “disruptions” caused by the world “situation”. One can of course argue that without electricity you can’t run electronics, but many have solar power and/or generators so there must be a way to play from a local library without working internet.
In addition there are new regulations (laws) on the way in EU that may give power distributors the right to disconnect power (to “manage” power shortages) for an area (or single households within an area, welcome “smart” meters) with no warnings for up to two hours at a time.
I suggest that Roon writes a detailed advisory on what to expect from Roon when internet is gone (no DNS, Roon servers off line etc.). How must Roon and the network be set up to work with local files when there is no internet? It is also necessary to consider that Roon must gracefully handle to be turned off and on when power disappears and comes back (when no one is home to handle it for example).
One could maybe have a software switch to disable certain functions in Roon that would prevent it from running smoothly without internet? The switch could be made conditional: if a certain internet resource is unavailable for x seconds the switch goes from greyed out to active and can be toggled. When the internet resource is again stable the switch is automatically turned off and greyed out.
None of this should require any restart/reboot of remote, bridge/RAAT or core.
My internet quite often goes out, and Roon usually chugs along for local files. Remember that Roon only needs to occasionally access their servers to authenticate the subscription. Otherwise, internet is not needed for streaming local files.
There’s a multitude of network equipment and operating system network code out there, and a comparable multitude of behaviors when the user’s LAN loses its connection to the ISP. For instance, would you able to vouch for every piece of gear on your LAN happily continuing to communicate with everything else on the same LAN if DNS goes out? You might be surprised about how many things freeze without DNS, even though in theory they should not need it to talk locally.
TL; DR The detailed advisory you request would run to 100s of pages and still be incomplete, and soon outdated.
Not strictly true. Just about every screen you access in Roon is pulling content from Roon’s cloud infrastructure and you have no ability to disable that.
Unless I’m mistaken the popular tracks and similar artists in any artist view are pulled and filtered from cloud as is every sort default that relies on popularity (i.e. what Roon users play most).
This is most likely caused by a missing DHCP server on your network. I know for example that when my internet connection drops, my router starts cycling services and attempting re-connections and restarts automatically. The router is also my DHCP server, so my local devices can lose connectivity with each other.
Thanks Tim – this sounds logical, since my iPhone and Pad are still connected to the router via wifi, and the Nucleus is connected via hardline. However, they lose contact with each other once internet goes out. I admit I don’t have the IT knowledge to dig into my router (or iPad?) to fix it, so I’m hoping Roon can write either a bit of code or a clear explanation on how we can deal with it. Meanwhile – back to CDs during those times.
So Danny can you explain why this is all I get from the app when my internet goes down. Which it has done 10 times today. Worst it’s ever been since I have had it. They have a fault they are working on.
Have you concluded that it’s not your router that messes up things?
My ASUS RT-58AX (in conjunction with the fibre converterin the building) makes a total mess of my network when internet access is lost unexpectedly. On the other hand, my “stand alone Roon kit” (iMac+5Tb drive) gladly runs Roon when off the grid, only once a month or so it wants Internet access to validate my license/activation.
SukieInTheGraveyard
(This one time, at Bandcamp... I spent too much money!)
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I decided to have a play around with this. When I physically disconnected the internet but left everything else intact I’m happy to report that local playback was available for both my endpoints (yes, I have a very modest set up!). I could also use the Android app as a remote. I’ve assigned fixed IP addresses to everything so don’t know if that helps things???
It might be, but why I can play music using BubbleUPnP and my Naim app surely they would have a similar issue if it’s my router. Given others have reported issues in other threads it does seem Roon isn’t overly happy in certain network setups when it looses internet. I am not changing my network setup for one app that can’t cope with it. But I do want to know the reason as to whats causing it to see if there is a solution I can put to my gears support. A simple it must be your network is not the answer as a customer I want. If it is down to an incompatibility with my network I will accept it but want to know the reasons for this. That’s not much to ask.
