Over the past week I’ve noticed a dramatic increase in track selection search-to- play time on Masters or FLAC. Initially this delay was acceptably short but its gone from seconds to the best part of a minute.
Accessing Tidal directly via Tidal app on an Oppo 105D player this problem does not occur search is very fast on the same ethernet network. My conclusion is that Roon servers have slowed down for some reason.
I’m using Roon with an SoTM bridge and MQA player.
I have written to Roon several times for an answer but no response.
Thanks for reaching out to us here. Can you please let me know what kind of Core you are using and how it is connected to the network? Are you using WiFi or Ethernet for the network connection? Have you rebooted your Core and Networking gear recently? Is there any change in behavior if these devices are rebooted?
Not sure what you mean by core ….the fact is all was fine at first since May 2019 but things have deteriorated during the last week or so … track to play was great now it takes about 30 to 45 sec…
Ethernet
SoTM Ultra bridge
Tidal
Eunhasu
Audiolab 8300CDQ full MQA
Playing direct from Tidal app no problem … No MQA of course only FLAC
One more nugget for you … delays happen when a fresh track /album is selected if an album is let run without skipping tracks it is Ok but this was not always so previously random selections within or outside an album were very fast.
George
Thanks for letting me know that additional information. By Core I mean the device hosting the Roon Application, and this can either be a PC with the Roon app on it (in most cases) or a dedicated Core setup.
Just to clarify a few aspects here:
Please only use this thread to reach out to us, the accounts team has noted that you are trying to use email to reach us, but I should note that we we handle all of our support here on Community. I would be more than happy to help to assist you here with this issue.
Can you clarify what the exact error state is here? You mention that there is a slow “search to play time delay”, does this mean that searching itself is taking a long time, or starting playback is taking a long time? We should separate these two error states.
Can you try rebooting your PC and networking gear if you have not done so already? By reboot I mean - power off, unplug the power cable, wait 30 seconds and power back on.
Does this issue only occur when playing to the SoTM zone? For example, if you try to play to “System Output”, do you notice similar delays? If this issue is endpoint specific, it would give us a great data point.
What is your network setup like? Can you let me know the model/manufacturer of all your networking gear?
Thanks for letting me know that additional information. By Core I mean the device hosting the Roon Application, and this can either be a PC with the Roon app on it (in most cases) or a dedicated Core setup.
Yes I’m using a PC running Roon and Eunhasu
Just to clarify a few aspects here:
Please only use this thread to reach out to us, the accounts team has noted that you are trying to use email to reach us, but I should note that we we handle all of our support here on Community. I would be more than happy to help to assist you here with this issue.
I had to get in through the back door because it was the only way to get a direct input. Noted.
Can you clarify what the exact error state is here? You mention that there is a slow “search to play time delay”, does this mean that searching itself is taking a long time, or starting playback is taking a long time? We should separate these two error states.
When a track is selected search starts pretty much immediately it’s the time to actually start playing after the track has been selected that has increased significantly. On selecting a new track it mutes immediately whatever was playing this search phase can last over 30s or more. This is what has changed recently and as I say it all worked fine for months with exactly the same setup .
Can you try rebooting your PC and networking gear if you have not done so already? By reboot I mean - power off, unplug the power cable, wait 30 seconds and power back on.
Both PC and router rebooted as suggested but no difference.
Does this issue only occur when playing to the SoTM zone? For example, if you try to play to “System Output”, do you notice similar delays? If this issue is endpoint specific, it would give us a great data point.
Yes exactly the same regardless if playback is via System Out or via the bridge in SoTM Zone
What is your network setup like? Can you let me know the model/manufacturer of all your networking gear?
Bear in mind that actual streaming is not a problem once a track starts besides the setup worked just fine from April 2019 until two weeks ago when I started noticing the delays.
Huawei HG633 router, Fast fibre copper network to service provider, the PC and the SoTM sMS -200Ultra bridge are both Ethernet connected to router not WiFi …
Furthermore, playing Tidal directly using an OPPO 105D player that supports Tidal ( over Wi-Fi) it’s all good no delays fast search and play.
Thanks for letting me know that additional information, it is appreciated. I would next like to take a look at diagnostics to see if there is any further clues in this regard, but before I go ahead and enable diagnostics mode for your account, can I please ask you to note the exact local time and date when this behavior occurs (e.g. 9:38PM on 8/11/19)? If you can list the timestamp when this occurs for both SoTM and non-SoTM zone, it would be helpful to have.
Not quite sure what you want me to do … what behaviour are you referring to?
If you are referring to the long search to play time behaviour I can tell you it is always present day & night.
If that is not what you mean please clarify what you mean. I can only be at my PC from 6PM UK time … thanks
PS : To reiterate search delays only occur with Roon on both SoTM and Sys-Out.
Delays never occur when I stream directly from Tidal via the PC (ethernet) or via OPPO 105D (WiFi).
From 6 PM BST I will generate a number random ‘events’ noting PC time from start of search to beginning of play with SoTM and will do the same with Sys-Out.
I will send you a list of these events.
Is this what you need ? If so please advise when you enable diagnostic mode .
Yes, these timestamps was exactly what was needed, so thank you for sending those over. Now that I have them, I have enabled diagnostics mode for your account and what this does is automatically generate and upload a set of logs to our servers for analysis. I can see that these arrived (pretty much instantly) and I have passed them onto our QA team for closer analysis.
While we wait for QA’s specific feedback, I can mention that your issue will be due to either the networking setup or the Core machine itself and we can work towards eliminating these variables like so:
Do you by any chance have another PC around the house which you can temporarily host the Roon Core on? This would provide an excellent data point in that we can troubleshoot the Core further if this other PC does not exhibit the same symptoms.
Do you have another router which you can use in place of the current one? You mentioned that you have a Huawei HG633 Router currently set up. From our experience, we have seen that ISP provided routers are often sub-standard and don’t always perform as expected, and we mention this in our Networking Best Practices.
I can certainly let you know once I have additional feedback from the technical team but if you want to start eliminating the above two aspects in the mean-time, it would give us some useful data points.
As I have stated before the issue started a few weeks ago it worked just fine before that with exactly the same setup. Further Streaming from Tidal directly is perfect its only when Roon is in the picture that the issues arise. Therefore I am sceptical about blaming the PC or router please. I would argue that the problem is with your servers. Lets wait see what the results.
The router was issued by the service provider when upgraded to fast fibre.
If it was a PC or router issue streaming would be poor but it is not bad once playback starts streaming is fine with excellent MQA performance. No I don’t have another router.
Also note that delays are worse when selecting MQA material as you can see from the list I sent.
Thanks for the additional feedback here. I will let you know once I have heard back from QA regarding your log report and I appreciate your patience in the meantime.
Thanks for letting me know that new timestamp and I appreciate your patience until I heard back from QA. I have discussed with them and they are inclined to say that this is an environmental issue somewhere along the line. I understand that TIDAL works as expected for you, but the TIDAL app and Roon use two different technologies for audio output and are not comparable.
What would be useful here are the answers to the following questions, so please do let me know this when possible:
For the zones affected by this issue, do you have any DSP active or other non-default audio output settings? Have you recently changed the DSP settings for any of your affected zones?
If you try to play back a local FLAC and MQA file, do you still experience this delay for your affected zones? If you do not have any local MQA or FLAC files, you can use a few sample files from the 2L Test Bench to verify this aspect (http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html).
Can you please provide a more accurate description of your networking setup? Ideally, a diagram or a picture of how everything is connected would be helpful, or at least noting the network chain to each device would be useful to have (e.g. Modem -> Router Port 1 -> Core Laptop -> Endpoint).
Please let me know the above information when possible and we can proceed with troubleshooting. Thanks!
I don’t have any downloaded MQA files Streaming delays occur on both but more severe with MQA I stated many times YES both but NOT WHEN streaming directly from Tidal Apps* Roon IS THE PROBLEM. PLEASE DON’T keep asking the same questions I’ve already ANSWERED please READ.
Please man !! … I’ve told you 1500 times before the system hasn’t changed since first joining Roon 5 months ago nothing has changed apart from a degradation from your servers comprende?*
Look mate LISTEN READ :
the system has NOT changed
Identical since April 2019
degradation from Roon began 2 - 3 weeks ago with the delay
Tidal streaming direct is perfect
MQA streaming is fine once it gets going after the delay 30 + seconds
FLAC delays with Roon are less than MQA ( I said this yesterday !)
I have already described my system to you
I friend has reported similar issues regarding loading delays in the UK so I’m not alone