Roon Won't Play Certain Files on Endpoints; Plays fine on ARC

Roon Core Machine

Synology DS218+, Celeron Processor, 6GB RAM

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Asus ZenWifi AX router
Asus ZenWifi AX node #2 with wired backhaul connection
Connection from Core to router is hardwired direct

Connected Audio Devices

Roon ARC running on iPhone 13 Pro Max
Macbook Air M1 (2020) 16GB RAM; connected via WiFi
Mytek Brooklyn Bridge endpoint; hardwired
Mac Studio M1 Max endpoint; 32GB RAM; hardwired

Number of Tracks in Library

I noticed that when playing music on my Macbook Air, some songs that I knew to be on the NAS were not playing or were freezing the Roon app on both my laptop playing core audio or Mac Studio outputting to the Mytek. I tried to trouble shoot this and found some files that could replicate the behavior repeatedly. At the same time, RoonARC in random play PLAYED these files that were not playing on the endpoint computers. So I tested the following:

  • connected to the music files (m4a format) and played them on each Mac from finder: SUCCESS
  • from ARC searched the Roon library, selected the same song and started playing: SUCCESS
  • Went to Macbook Air, started Roon, searched for same file and played it: WOULD NOT PLAY
  • Went to Mac Studio and used Mytek Brooklyn Bridge as output: WOULD NOT PLAY

I find it incredibly odd that both Macs outside of Roon can play the files and ARC can play the files but the endpoints running Roon cannot. There are many other files in the library that play fine. No issues with any Tidal files.

I tried disabling the storage location, adding it separately as a new one and rescanning the library. Same behavior.

Thanks

Did you set up ffmpeg correctly for the core as in the instruction for Roon on NAS? They will work via Arc as they are sent without any core processing. When using full Roon they need decoding to PCM on the core and this requires ffmpeg installed as per the instructions.

https://roononnas.org/en/synology-dsm7/

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Never realized I was having issues with certain songs until recently so had not done the install before. This solved the problem. Thank you!

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