Dear developer friends at RoonLab,
I understand that you want to know if we are not cheating on our Roon subscription, but times are becoming uncertain and I think it is becoming essential that we can use Roon without internet access. At least for the lifetime subscription.
What do other users think of this wonderful tool?
Apart from that, it would make me very unhappy if I couldn’t enjoy the new releases or ideas for new music that I take from the radio or from magazines, podcasts etc. So it’s not at all a question of cutting Roon off from the internet for me. Just to have the possibility to do so.
Your friend, Serge
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Just curious, if you didn’t have Internet access how would you enjoy the new releases or ideas for new music that you take from the radio or from magazines, podcasts, etc?
I won’t be able to have all this, but I will still be able to enjoy the music files that are on my NAS. In the current state, I won’t enjoy anything in case of internet failure.
No, I’m not (yet) a survivalist.
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Are you saying you don’t have the ability to listen to your own music files without Roon?
I had thought that you could do this now. Whilst connections to the internet for metadata updates can occur everyday, if the internet connection exists; AFAIK, checks for a valid Roon subscription are only needed every 28 days or so. So you should be able to use Roon as long as an internet outage does not last longer than a month.
@Jim_F Jim–F
The idea here is to use Roon, isn’t it. Not to found a band 
@Geoff_Coupe
I ask because this problem has happened to me before. An update from my internet provider went wrong.
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I ask because this problem has happened to me before. An update from my internet provider went wrong.
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I get that but that’s not what you asked. In fact you never mentioned the NAS at all in your original post.
It is needed, I play my music with an endpoint that only works with Roon, so if the internet is down I have nothing
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So I’ve used Roon for years an suddenly my internet connection is gone for longer than the 28 days mentioned by @Geoff_Coupe above. Are you suggesting I then should use a different player? I know it is an unlikely scenario, but certainly possible these days.
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I don’t think Roon is the only way to play Your local music on your device. I am sure Roon wishes that were so. I would imagine the product you use has a way to play music without the need of Roon? I have AURALiC and they have their own software that does not require internet service to play local music.
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If the internet is down for more than 28 days, indeed you have nothing. However, if the internet is down temporarily, then Roon will still play music that you have in local storage. No streamed albums, obviously, and you won’t get “Recommended for you” or New Releases For You", but Roon will still run.
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28 days !
I bought Roon lifetime, no subscription or trial version !!
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I don’t know what bandwidth is required for Roon validate your server instance, but maybe it is worthwhile, if you are really worried, to setup your smaptphone as a mobile hotspot.
This way, your Roon server could connect to your smartphone via Wifi and then to the internet.
Maybe this could be a backup route.
Dirk
Hmm, not sure how that would help.
You still need your ISP to be online along with all the intermediate way stations of your route.
The chances that you can’t find a mobile operator (mostly there are 2-3 active in a region that you can select) are rather small.
If the ‘complete’ internet is down, I do believe we will have to deal with other problems than not be able to use Roon for playing local music.
Dirk
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If the internet goes down for 28 days or more, we will have such huge problems that listening to music won’t even enter your mind. Personally, I don’t think this is something Roon should pursue.
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@Serge_Rochat - I think it is a very good idea, especially for Lifetime subscriptions. What if RoonLabs one day goes bankrupt? Hopefully it never happens, and if it does hopefully another company will take over.
A clever programmer should be able to implement this function (for Lifetime subs.) easily in hours not days or weeks.
I have not yet paid for Lifetime. It is not stupid to do a little risk analysis sometimes, right?
I have an old Sonos unit - I don’t use it since sound is not on par with Roon, but Sonos will keep playing my NAS music w/o internet connection, so why not Roon?
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Danny answered that question in a previous topic on that very subject.
Sonos is a hardware package… Roon is a software application that is licensed for use (within specific terms) by the user … Roon needs to periodically ensure that the license is valid to protect itself from piracy.
It protects both Roon and it’s legitimately users.
It’s quite a common practice with software vendors.
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Roon requires an internet connection. At the moment you can go offline for about 30 days – this is mostly driven by metadata licensing requirements.
For example, we must report to copyright authorities every month on how many lyrics have been viewed, and which lyrics those are. It’s so that royalties can be paid to the lyrics authors. I guess we could turn off lyrics if you don’t have internet access, but that is lame.
It is not on our roadmap to change this requirement.
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