RoonServer upgrade seems to have corrupted database

Roon Core Machine

Core is on a MacMini (mid 2011) running 10.13.6 with a 2.7 GHz Intel Core 7 processor and 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 with a 2TB internal SSD holding the music and backups going to an external 250 GB SSD. Can’t tell you the version of RoonServer because it doesn’t show in Info but I downloaded it last night.

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Core is connected by Verterre Ethernet cable to an Ethernet port thence to a DLink switch then a BT hub which distributes around the house by Wifi.

Connected Audio Devices

Music plays through a Verterre USB cable to a Resolution Cantata v3, or via Ethernet to the BT hub which distributes to other endpoints (mainly Apple TVs connected to stereo systems or HomePods) in the house via wifi. Roon exists on various phones, iPads and Macs.

Number of Tracks in Library

My library is around 1 TB and (from memory) has about 13,000 tracks in various folders stored on the MacMini SSD and backed up to Backblaze. I subscribe to both Qobuz and Tidal.

Description of Issue

Everything was working fine until the last RoonServer upgrade. Immediately following that, I got the dreaded ‘There was an issue loading your database’ message.

I reinstalled RoonServer and renamed the RoonServer folder in Library as instructed. I looked for a backup in the external disk that Roon backs up to - but none were there.

I downloaded (overnight) the most recent backup from Backblaze, which backs up my backups to the cloud; this, oddly was Sep 19 so presumably no backups have been happening since then without my knowing.

I opened RoonServer and from the login screen restored that backup successfully, but then RoonServer said it needed to upgrade my database, following which I again got the error message ‘There was an issue loading your database’.

I am now stuck. Please help. Although my own music is safe, I have hundreds of albums in my Roon library from Qobuz and Tidal and will be seriously unhappy if I’ve lost them all.

A post was split to a new topic: Database issue after update

Hi @Julian_Treasure

I’m so sorry to hear about the trouble you’re having loading the Roon database. Typically, problems loading the database mean that it may have been corrupted at some point. We have more information about what can cause corruption and steps that you can take to recover your database here:

If you’re having any issues after following the recovery steps above, please let me know!

As an aside, right now our team is working on some changes that will help our customers detect corruption when it’s happening. If you don’t mind, I’m hoping you could take two minutes to send us your corrupt database. That way our team can analyze the type of corruption and prevent similar cases in the future.

Here’s how you can help:

  1. Follow the recovery steps above
  2. Zip up your Roon_OLD or RoonServer_OLD folder (right-click it and select “Compress…”):
  3. Sumbit the .zip file to us through our Database Corruption Issues portal

Your participation will go a long way in helping our team improve corruption detection, so we’d greatly appreciate your help. :pray:

Thanks Dylan, I will zip and send the folder. However, as stated in my post, I have already done all the things in that list. I rebooted. I reinstalled RoonServer. I Created RoonServer_old (which I am sending to you). I downloaded a backup from the cloud and restored it using the new RoonServer. RoonServer said it had to upgrade the database, then I got the the error message again.

I hope that when you get the database you can retrieve the data for me. It will take some time: it is 5.79 GB uncompressed.

Hi @Julian_Treasure,

Do you have any older backups you can try restoring?

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I just checked Backblaze and all my backups have disappeared. The external SSD that I back up to is completely empty, so maybe Backblaze has backed up this empty drive over what was there before.

Zip file will be ready in a few minutes to start uploading.
Now uploading…should be done in an hour or two.

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Hi Dylan. You should have the database now.

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Hi Dylan. Is there any news on my database?

Hi Dylan. Is anything happening here? I don’t see any replies to my messages.

I also had a corrupted database (see this closed thread) and the corruption also reappeared by restoring from a backup onto a different and fresh machine (M1 MacBook). Well, the first hours the machine does not show any issues, but then I get this corruption message. It happens during analyzing the changed files.

Because I manage my Music in iTunes, It was easy to start a fresh Setup, which works well since days. Interestingly, I now have 96% free on Rock’s 114 GB system volume instead of 75% with nearly the same Data. With the new setup, I’ve currently fewer Tags, less identified albums and less custom artist pictures. I don’t think, that such metadata will make the database so huge.

Today I’ve tried restoring my old backup with the latest Roon version with the same results: some hours after restoring, the database is corrupt again.

So, I’m glad that I haven’t trusted Roon’s proprietary Database and continued storing as much metadata as possible into the files.

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