I recently decided to setup a roon core on my MacBook air to take on holiday. I uncoupled the desktop core and setup and tested Roon on my macbook at home before leaving. All worked well. However, where I was staying had very poor phone reception and no wifi, and guess what Roon would not work. So no music in the caravan! Does this program need to speak to the mothership at every startup? Surely there must be a way around this? If not please fix it!
PS:- I took my set up where I could get a phone signal and wifi to test it, and hey presto Roon worked.
No, not every startup; once Roon has finished analysing your library (which includes downloading metadata from Roon’s servers in the cloud), Roon should only require internet access every 3-4 weeks to check on its license.
Perhaps you had taken your MacBook out of your home before it had finished analysing your library?
How did you setup Roon on your MacBook Air? With a fresh installation of the full Roon software (so Core/Control/Outputs) and a copy of your music files on the MacBook Air to act as your library?
If you did that, then you would need to transfer your license to your MacBook so that you could use it on holiday. That would be best done at home, where you’d have the necessary internet connection. Once the license had been transferred, and your copy of the library on your MacBook Air had been imported, then you should be good to go without an internet connection for a few weeks.
I’ve just tested that here (using a Windows 10 laptop), and it works fine without needing to have an internet connection…