Yesterday I triggered a bug that cuases the Roon server to repeatedly crash when attempting to ingest new FLAC albums from the watch folder(s). At least six other users have reported the same issue, which seems to have been introduced in the most recent software update. Near as I can tell, it only affects MacOS Catalina installations, but that’s anecdotal.
As a relatively tech-savvy user, I was able to diagnose/isolate the failure conditions and therefore retain partial functionality; but I can easily imagine this being a literal show-stopping bug for most users, and so far there has been zero coordinated response from the support team! What’s up with that? At a minimum, I would have hoped to see a pinned notice advising people to hold off updating; providing tips for restoring partial functionality; and clear reassurance that a fix is in the works. Please do better.
First of all, it’s the weekend and Roon Support does not work on the weekend. Secondly, Roon Support has a queue of support requests that they must deal with. Your request from yesterday has not yet reached the top of the queue. There is nothing shocking here.
EDIT: Roon is well aware they do not provide technical support on weekends and also are not manned up for always immediate response to technical issues. If they were providing critical life support products, they probably would. Personally, I would not want to pay more for the added technical support.
I can assure you, @Jim_F, I do find the lack of response to be shocking. To have your music server crash for the weekend makes for a horrible user experience, period. If this feedback is controversial to Roon Labs, I suppose this would be a good time to find out.
May I respectfully suggest that you read what @Jim_F says again: he’s a poster of wisdom and experience; what he wrote describes the way support works. You’ll be OK if you are patient, though we appreciate that’s not always easy !
In the meantime, may we ask you to add details to your OP, please - and forgive (at least) me if I have misunderstood?
Why are you trying to import (if that’s what you mean by ‘ingest’) FLAC files from a watched folder? Or more than one watched folder; if so, why?
@Mark_Sealey, may I gently suggest that you and @Jim_F are both missing the point here. My original post was to provide unvarnished feedback about the objectively terrible experience this paying customer is having due to a show-stopping server crash.
If you’d like some additional details about the crashes, take a look at my ticket in the Support forum. I originally commented in this existing ticket thread that I was experiencing the same symptoms, and was advised to open a separte ticket. You’ll see that ten or more others did the same.
I’m well aware of how support works, and that it’s apparently relatively effective most of the time. In this instance, it’s unequivocally falling short.
I can’t (and wouldn’t) speak for @Jim_F; as I see it your point is that you wish that solutions to (tech) support issues could be effected sooner.
I’m sure that many people in many situations feel the same; and/or that there were no such things as software bugs.
My fear is that not everyone will reliably translate such phrases (of yours) as:
a literal show-stopping bug for most users (it isn’t for me)
zero coordinated response from the support team (after five hours at a weekend)
Please do better (is such peremptory language courteous?)
lack of response [is] shocking (weren’t you advised to take the action you have?
a horrible user experience (agreed not what one wants - but by no means for all users; and if the unique attributes of those who are experiencing it can be identified, possibly easier to fix)
objectively terrible experience (doesn’t objective imply that there’s no element of the personal in it - and that thus everyone can expect it? I’m on (a later version) macOS and updated to 1442 the other day + this afternoon I imported several dozen files without trouble… no less sorry that others are nevertheless experiencing difficulties, though!)
into: “Here’s a very frustrated user; let’s make sure that he knows that he’s not being ignored”, which is what - if I’m following properly - @Carl carefully did today, Sunday, here.
I doubt that there’s a single user on this forum who hasn’t sympathized with anyone else experiencing downtime. I certainly do. I’ve had a couple of what to me were disappinting malfunctions over the five years since I began to use Roon. One did take what - to me - was a frustratingly long time to resolve. But resolve it they ( @daniel, actually) did. He (and his team) patiently worked to help me identify a corrupted file, which I removed and replaced - and have not looked back .
I have a funny feeling that the phenomenon you’re experiencing is already being investigated and will be addressed (as @Jim_F implies) soon. Especially if all the other users to whom you refer are also all using an OS which is five years out of date on hardware a dozen years old with 16 GB Ram (that is, have you checked to see if that combination is supported… the very act of adding files couldn’t be causing the crash because of lack of space, could it?)
There are too many experienced and expert users here on the forum for the phenomenon to go unattended to for long. See this post, for example. Is there anything you notice about the size, filetype or naming of the files you are trying unsuccessfully to add?
!