Shrunk database size after 1.8 build 880 update

After the recent 880 build update, I noticed that my database size has shrunk. Otherwise, Roon, or in this case Rock, is working normally but it is making me concerned about the validity of my backup.

Initially, under ROCK Web UI, I had 90% of 232 GB available and my backup size was around 22GB.
After the build 880 update, I have 94% of 232 GB available and my backup size is around 13GB.
As an additional note, I do my backup manually, and always to a new empty folder. Therefore, the pre 880 build backup vs the 880 backup could be considered apple to apple comparison.

Does anybody else experience the same thing?

For build 880, we changed how artwork is managed in the database. Instead of downloading all artwork up front and storing it in the database, it’s now downloaded from our servers on the fly, and managed in the Cache/ folder, which does not get backed up. I would expect most databases to become significantly smaller as a result of this update.

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Yes, mine dropped from 27GB to 22GB.

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So, after a Backup, my lib could look different?

What about images that I’ve updated/uploaded myself (directly in my roon core, not via Art Director)?

Not any more than it could before build 880.

Even prior to this change the Roon app updated artwork from our cloud services on a continuous basis, so in the pre-B880 world, as soon as you restored the backup, Roon would go about updating everything to latest (while respecting your edits and library settings, obviously).

In the new world, updates to imagery happen on the fly when you are viewing the artwork instead of up front when the items are being added to your library.

In both cases, Roon is displaying you the latest stuff. The exact details of how the plumbing work have changed, that’s it.

Nothing has changed for artwork that came from local files or from editing. This is just about how artwork makes its way from our cloud services into Roon.

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Hi Brian, Just to clarify, If I add my own artwork for an album. Will that artwork be backed up by Roon’s database backup?

Thank you for the explanation.

This change would imply faster backup and restore as well I suppose. But, after a restore, it would take quite a while for the graphic arts to be downloaded from the Internet. In my case, about 9GB worth of pictures needed to be downloaded from the Internet after a restore. Is that right?

Only if you go to every single album and artist page in your library. Images are loaded on demand now (and cached locally).

So if my Internet service is down, I would see no graphic arts whatsoever unless for the albums that I’ve “seen” previously? That would be a disadvantage I guess. People who use Roon offline, although they might be a minority, might be unhappy. I with an always on Internet would prefer to have graphics arts to be stored all the time locally and only refresh when they are newer arts. I will see how well it works out. Although I suspect, doing it the old way would be snappier response in user experiencewise especially if the Internet speed is slow.

Thank you.

Hogio

I listed all my albums and then scrolled through to populate the cover pictures.
After doing this there was still some covers that didn’t download. Some are local albums and other from Qobuz.
How do we force a download?

Edit: I see this is a known issue so will wait for a fix

I just updated to build 882. Out of curiosity and wanted to make sure that I have a valid backup, I experimented the following.

I went to Rock and renamed RoonServer folder and restarted Roon, forcing it to start fresh so that I could do a restore to a fresh empty folder. I did the restore from my build 880 backup. The restore process went a lot faster. It took me 15 minutes. Previously, when I did a restore it took me around 50 minutes.

After the restore is finished, Roon relaunched but I am missing thousands of albums. I restarted ROCK again and there was a message that Roon need to optimize/update the Database and after that all of the albums appears normally.

I also tested to see if the album cover arts would appear slow or fast. I did not notice any difference. But maybe because I have all of the files locally. If I have more albums from Tidal/Qobuz, I might have a different result.

Anyway, I am confident that my backup is safe and sound. And I would delete the older RoonServer folder later if no other problem show up.

Thank you.

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As you’re talking about offline (therefore downloaded) listening, do you have embedded artwork? If so, this would still be available if the internet is down.

A post was split to a new topic: Not seeing images

Yes,I think it should work like that. However, last week when I did the experiment, I did not turn off the Internet. Should have done that and I would know for sure.

Correct.

Licensing prevents being offline long term, and the Valence features all break when offline. You can try running offline, but it’s not going to be good.

That would explain why artwork is now slow to load. Please reconsider this.

And merry Christmas!

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I prefer the old way too

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Mee too,I have many volumme