Same old Roon under the hood?

Roon Software Discussion
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So I have now spent some significant quality time with Roon 1.8. The 1.8 interface is OK. The 1.7 interface was OK. I have enjoyed having some things highlighted that weren’t highlighted in 1.7. I don’t have a strong opinion on the interface changes but they seem like a mild step forward, subject to the loss of usability that some folks have faced.

However, what I don’t really get is why Roon appears to have focused on putting a new coat of paint on what still runs like my 1975 Chevy Nova. (OK, I don’t have a 1975 Chevy Nova…but if I did…)

Here’s what I mean: 1.8 seems to have all the same performance and stability problems as prior versions:

—Resource leak/processing hangovers: whatever causes Roon to slow down over time, simply by running, is still there. Over the course of hours after a restart, Roon takes longer and longer between tracks, until at about 30 seconds I can’t stand it anymore and I restart. Searches take longer. pages take longer to open,.the whole Roon experience slows to a crawl. This has been an issue at 3 houses, different gear, the only constants being Windows 10 based Roon Cores and local files stored on separate machines - UNRAID servers or windows running Stablebit.

–Roon just hanging at the end of tracks for no reason. Come back in the room, and Roon is just stopped. Sometimes it still indicates it is playing, but have to hit skip to get it to play the next track.

—Roon stopping internet Radio for no reason. There are stations that will only play for 3-4 seconds. Restart, they start, then stop 3-4 seconds later. At other times, it will play for hours then stop. If I didn’t hit “stop,” why can’t Roon stay connected and keep trying to stay connected?

—Roon failing to serve artist or usually album cover images to certain remotes. This does seem to be less frequent than 1.7, but I have still seen it happen.

—Tag queries using Boolean logic seem to accelerate the first issue above regarding resource leaks or processing hangover. Once I do one of these focus queries, inevitably I have to restart Roon to get it working again.

I can still use Roon - I do all the time, every day, pretty much Roon is running at all points I am awake. I just don’t understand why these performance problems aren’t a higher priority than rearranging icons and areas on various screens. Get the motor running well first, THEN apply that coat of fresh paint!

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The cross-platform framework underneath didn’t change.

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OK, architecturally I would not be able to say what is the same versus different. I would just think, but understand that users have very different opinions on these points, that it would be preferable to get the engine running smoothly before making more cosmetic changes. I just wanted to point out that The Roon Experience is still pretty spotty relative to underlying performance.

There’s a lot to love about it. But I’d love it more if I didn’t have to restart the Roon core almost daily to keep it functioning, and would love it even more if I could listen to the internet radio stations that are all listed, whereas with many it simply isn’t possible…Roon just disconnects and sits there.

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What is the core system performance specs you are running on, I have 270k tracks in my library and 250k are local on my hard drive. It’s never laggy or slow with stops between tracks.

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@James_I It really sounds like you have some network issues over there… all your symptoms are not universal, and most would be triggered by a misbehaving network.

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I can appreciate your comments on the Roon interfaces and agree. I could live with either one but I’m liking 1.8 more every day. Maybe the functionality already existed in 1.7 and is more apparent to me in 1.8, don’t know, but I like what’s there.

I’m seeing more discography, per artist, and recommendations with 1.8 and finding more music I enjoy than I have previously.

What I don’t get is the performance/stability issues mentioned. I use a NUC/RCOK server and it doesn’t exhibit any performance problems, always available, no memory creep or other issues requiring restarts. Music starts instantly, as it should, and continues uninterrupted until I stop it.

I have had a few instances with USB connected devices, OPPO 205 DAC not showing up in audio settings (one time), and the disc player for ripping not working (several times). Not sure if that is an Intel issue or Roon OS/Roon software issue but re-connecting the cable has usually corrected it.

Most of the time I use my PC/Laptop with Ethernet for remote control while at my desk but I also use the IPAD and android phone with Wi-Fi for remote access and none of those have any issues. The startup/connect time is much quicker and the overall performance seems faster.

Could it be the server platform Roon Core is running on or perhaps the internal Network? When I started using Roon it was on a Windows 7 PC and worked most of the time but it did have skips and stops on occasions. That is what led me to the the NUC server platform and stable uninterrupted music availability.

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I have an AMD A10-7860K quad core, 3.6 base speed, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD HDD. So it was reasonably fast and modern when I built it 3 years ago. It’s dedicated to Roon.

That’s the one at my main home. The one at our second home is similarly spec’d but a little bit newer and faster.

In terms of network, this has been consistent over many different network topographies, as I moved this summer and replace the router, and it’s running off of a completely different switch. It is on the same switch as the separate Windows 10 machine that stores the FLAC files. That server is brand new, hexacore, 2.5gb network card (and yes the switch is up to 10gb, the Roon core has a 10gb card in it as well).

At the other home it is a simpler network - all just hooked up to a 1gb network switch and pulling FLAC files from an UNRAID server.

I obviously cannot say that this happens on all networks. All I can say is I have clearly observed it on 3 different networks, all different gear, albeit I tend to build them the same way, with the Win10 machines and separate FLAC storage.

Thanks for asking, Danny, but I’m not sure what to do, considering different gear at all 3 locations.

What I may do is see if connecting the endpoint directly to the core speeds anything up - the core has 2 network ports. But I have that at my “other house” and it hasn’t improved performance there.

Maybe Roon needs some built-in network troubleshooting tools? i.e. a bit more information with error messages, maybe the ability to measure what performance is critical for Roon?

Is there any test I can run outside of Roon to provide that info?

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I have considered this, thanks for the suggestion. But I really prefer my Roon core on a windows machine. I don’t know Linux well and that also would prevent me from using some of the RGB functions I have running on the machine to add some flair to the appearance. Roon should work on Windows!

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Hard to see how “Resource leak/processing hangovers: whatever causes Roon to slow down over time” could be caused by a network issue. I find the same behaviour running Roon Core on a Mac Mini - plenty of memory (16Gb, never more than 7Gb used) but, if I stop and restart Roon (without rebooting the Mac Mini) then things are a lot faster and then slowly start to slow down over a 3 or 4 day period. I’ve seen others report similar issues over the last year or two.

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Same here on Ubuntu. Has been reported before on plenty threads.

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Thanks guys let’s keep the reports coming so that the Roon team has a good idea as to the scope of this issue. If it was just me, I’d try a different topography. But as mentioned, I have seen this on entirely different gear, and swapped in and out almost everything but the core, and I have 2 cores with the same issues, and it seems that others have this issue on other operating systems as well.

My guess is that people that don’t experience this are not doing something with Roon that we are - i.e. not using the same functions or features that create the problems.

Specifically regarding IP radio, performance does seem to differ by station, so that seems a separate point except that Roon could not give up and instead keep trying to connect. Or it may still be the same issue and just be very hard to pin down.

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One other thought: if this is a network issue, or even an issue with the performance of my core machine, then why does it resolve temporarily after restarting Roon?

It reliably does that, and takes about a day to get back to very slow, except when I try to use a Boolean focus on multiple tags, then it kills Roon straightaway and I have to restart. Similar feel to what was happening when one used the old Roon Search function and multiple searches slowed Roon to a halt.

And, having done nothing but listen to IP radio all morning, now I am looking at a remote on a different Windows 10 machine and Roon just stopped serving any images to it. Closed and reopened that remote instance, and the images are back.

Not stable. I’m sticking to my guns on this!

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I had the focus filter clogg-up on me after using it three times in a row. Just got this:

IMG_0015.PNG
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It only came back after a complete reboot of the ROCK. Not even just restarting the Server Software helped. This one also smells as if its piling up memory which doesnt get freed-up when you clear the filter.

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These comments have me looking more at usage patterns and less at hardware. I wonder if Roon struggles with a lot of indirect Tag usage. For example, I will tag 100 artists and then shuffle the Tag. But Roon plays tracks, not artists, so I wonder if that indirect tag translation creates a resource hangover of sorts?

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This also happened to me. I also use tags, but I am not a “heavy tagger”.

I had to restart the iPad app to restore focus functionality.

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I just had it again. This time on the „Composers“ page. Closing iPad App doesnt bring it back. Not even restarting server software helps. Need to reboot the entire ROCK.

No heavy use of tags at all. Only got 2 of them. This must be something else

I‘ll write a bug report on this so it doesnt get lost here.

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These could obviously be different issues. But I am starting to think that Tags are the fly in the ointment for all of this. HOWEVER, without Tags, Roon, well, would be entirely different software. Almost no way to use any sort of smart playlisting function.

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There are a LOT of people that use tags. They use them a lot. And they know a lot about Roon (I’m thinking of several Moderators). And they use Windows for their core. And they don’t restart their core every couple days.
While there may be a more general problem, the best way to get it illuminated is to have Support get diagnostics on you setup. Worst that can happen is your situation stays the same. But there could be something actionable that comes from it.

This seems like it could produce something worth investigating.
Good luck!

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Thanks! I certainly use Roon enough to merit investigations.

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Could the answer be in the focus queries? I think you said that they sometimes hang – that raises my suspicions that there is some buggy code there. For the record, I don’t have the slowdown (that I’ve noticed). I’m running on a Nucleus+, have a few tags but not many, use Roon ~8 hours per day with 12000 tracks and 2TB of music. But I don’t use focus much.