I’ve failed to get ROON to work with my large library (1/3M+ tracks) using a variety of platforms and configurations.
All of these tested configurations all suffer from being unresponsive and slowing down with use. After a re-boot the system is snappy and fast but deteriorates with use (<1hour use). Looking at the PC system resources, there is no obvious bottlenecks.
I want to make it clear from the start that your library is larger than the vast majority (99%+) of other Roon users, so conventional solutions might not be applicable here, but let’s take a look and see what we can diagnose with your current setup.
Can you clarify what exactly is “slow” after an hour of using the system? Does playback take a long time to start? Does opening albums/navigating in the UI take a long time to load?
Where is your library contents stored, is it all on the Synology NAS? What does your network setup look like - what is the model/manufacturer of all your networking gear? Does the “slow” behavior impact all of your endpoints or just some?
Getting answers to these questions should give us a good starting point, do let me know the above and we can proceed from there. Thanks!
if I was to start playing an album, the first track might start within a few seconds, if I was to select to the next track (>>) it would hang for up to 10s then slowly the screen would start to update in steps finally updating all controls with a further delay before the music actually plays. If I was to drag the progress marker along to the right near the end of the track it would play the next track pretty quickly.
Sometimes say opening “Tags” it will return a window saying no tags even though there are plenty stored, Searching for content can be relatively snappy (considering the library size) other times it can take forever, it depends on how recently I re-booted the server or what activity preceded the search.
Cable hub (Virgin Media) set as a modem (disabled wifi), WAN routed to an ASUS RT-87U wireless router, LAN output routed to a Netgea 16port hub with ports hardwired Ethernet to other rooms in the house.
Good question… I’ll check tonight and edit my response.
Sorry for the delay but I wanted to answer this question after running some tests.
I decided to connect my RoonServer directly to the main network router as with a directly connected endpoint. This was a PC with Roon running with a pair of Bose QC 35 headphones bonded. The Bluetooth connectivity was tested using Helium playing local music files on this PC with instant response and no dropout.
All endpoints where sequentially played and all suffered from delays in starting to play music, skipping to the next track and other Roon UI functions like browsing for a Tag etc. The Sonos Play5 was the slowest, I expect this as it was connected via WiFi and not being a true Roon endpoint?
One other observation when skipping to the next track, when it is running slow it will go through the steps to play the next track (slowly) and then pause without starting it. If I select the play icon it plays.
The thing I did notice was that Roon is permanently scanning the music database for some reason: -
This never stops apart from when the server is restarted and finally becomes active, Roon responds instantly to actions and then after a short period will start scanning and never stops, the system then instantly slows down. If I click on the spinning icon it spears to be stuck in a perpetual hunt for tracks: -
If I import more music it correctly imports that music and this is indicated on the UI as the new music is available to play .: -
If I click the Clean Database button it indicates no errors: -
During this import period I disable Audio Analysis. I get into the habit of enabling this after music has been imported momentarily.
So I think this observation might point to why my system is running slowly, Roon must be taking resources from the Roon thread and soaking resources from the disk sub-system whilst stuck in this perpetual loop?
I believe the scanning activity might be playing a part in this issue, since you mention that after a reboot Roon responds instantly to actions and the slow behavior is only occurring when there is scanning going on.
When your Roon system is next in this state, can you send me a copy of your Roon logs by using these instructions? I’d like to get them over to QA to see if we can identify why the scanning behavior is occurring.
What happens immediately following a reboot and before the perpetual scanning behavior occurs? Do you add a track?
Also, I would click on all the “tutorial bubbles” to dismiss them, these take up slight amount of resources to display but in a setup such as yours where every little bit counts, you don’t want to have the tutorial bubbles use resources.
I’ve not rebooted since last Saturday and it’s been scanning continuously.
I’ll generate logs and post them tonight. Do I post the link here in the support forum, i.e. is this a private thread?
No tracks added, it start scanning right after Roon completes initialising (animated Roon icon @5mins). It’s been scanning since Saturday as I’ve not rebooted it but I have added tracks during this period.
Thanks for sending the logs over, I can confirm I received them. I have asked QA to review the logs for any clues as to why the re-scanning behavior is occurring, it may take a bit of time for this request to reach their queue, once I hear back I’ll be sure to let you know. Thanks in advance for your patience!
I appreciate your patience until I had a chance to discuss your case further with the QA team.
They have reviewed the log package you sent and there appears to be quite a few networking-related errors contained in them, it looks like requests to our account servers and metadata servers are not going through properly, which might be causing some of the constant re-scanning behavior you noticed.
As a follow-up step, can I please request that you try to update your DNS servers on the router to Cloudflare or Quad9 and verify if the same “activity spinner” is present and does not complete?
Yes I forgot to mention that last weekend I assigned a static IP to my Roonserver (incorrectly, as I’d missed out a DNS setting), this was resolved Monday. The later logs should be correct, I can produce more if you wish?
I’ll set this tonight and let it run over the weekend and report back.
Yes, please do let me know if the DNS servers help with the re-scanning behavior and send a new log after making the change, it would be interesting to know if the same networking traces appear following the DNS update.
I made the router DNS changes and the scanning issue has cleared now - thanks.
Unfortunately it hasn’t improved the performance, these symptoms haven’t improved.
To recap: -
Sluggish UI experience when loading tracks/albums.
Sluggish UI experience when skipping to next/previous track, except when moving the progress bar near to the end of the track and then it’s immediate.
Selecting Tags will often display a prompt saying their are not any and then they will pop up a few seconds later.
UI can hang periodically for no obvious reason mainly when changing tracks, i.e 6s to update the UI to the next track then another 8s to start playing it.
Once music has started playing it’s rock solid, I’ve never heard a stutter etc, even when playing to multiple end-pints simultaneously.
I’ll generate a fresh set of logs tonight with a busy weekend of use logged.
