Skipping w/o playing Music on ROCK with DAC directly attached to it

Hi
This is concerning my set up at my partner’s house.
This is a ROCK V1.0 (build 158) with roon V1.5 (build 323). I have an Arcam ir DAC connected directly to ROCK via USB. The music is on an internal drive in the ROCK.

The ARCAM shows up as device in roon (and it worked before the upgrade to 1.5). The ARCAM does work if I connect it directly to my MacBook.

But, when I try to play an album via ROCK, it shows all titels after each other, the violet light going on and off. But no music. It seems to start playing a song and then skips directly to the next song.

Normally if you play music to the Arcam, you hear a relay and the green light comes on. No click from the relay and no green light.

I re-scanned the library in roon, it found all the 30’000 songs but the issue remains.

This happens both for Tidal and songs that are on the internal SSD.

Any idea? I remember having this at home some year ago, but this was because the drive was not available.

Thanks for your help
Menno

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Hello @mjazz,

Thanks for contacting support, I’d be happy to help you out here!

Based on the observations that you have provided, I would like to see if we can trigger a change in behavior here by having you test with a fresh “RAATServer” folder in place. With this in mind may I very kindly ask you to please to try the following steps (see below) and see if it resolves the issue you are facing. Looking forward to hearing your observations!

  1. Before anything, please make a backup of your Roon Database.

  2. Next, please access ROCK’s webUI and stop the RoonServer process from running

  3. Once the RoonServer process has been stopped please connect to the “data” folder on ROCK via another computer (i.e smb://ROCK/Data).

  4. After you have accessed the “data” folder please locate and delete the current “RAATServer” folder that’s in place.

  5. Now that the RAATServer folder has been deleted, please start the RoonServer process again from the WebUI for Roon to generate a new RAATServer folder and let me know if this resolves your issue.

Thanks,
Noris

Hi Noris
I tried it twice (deleting RAATServer directory) and unfortunately without success. I am using a NUC i5 and tried the USB ports on the front as well, but that did not help either.

I will bring over my audioquest dragonfly to see if this device has the same problem. I will report on that.

Thanks
Menno

Hello @mjazz,

Sorry to hear that you are unable to delete your RAATServer directory. What exactly is going wrong with the deletion, are you unable to delete the directory or are unable to access it? You can follow instructions here on how to access the storage area of the NUC if that is what was failing for you. If it is not allowing you to delete the folder, that is because you must first Stop the Server from running from the Web Interface, attaching a screenshot below of what it should look like. I would suggest above all else that you try the RoonServer refresh first as that usually solves the majority of playback issues.

If you have refreshed the RoonServer folder and confirmed that there was no change in behavior, a few other things I would also try are the following:

  • Disabling DSP Engine to see if there is a change in behavior (This can be done in Settings -> Audio -> Settings for the affected zone -> DSP Engine -> Disable)
  • Turning on “Exclusive Mode” if available to see if that triggers a change in behavior (This can be done in Settings -> Audio -> Settings for the affected zone -> Device Setup -> Enable Exclusive Mode
  • Installing the newest drivers for your ARCAM irDAC from their site.

Otherwise please let me know if your Dragonfly has the same issue playing music and then we can narrow down what’s going wrong.

Thanks,
Noris

Hi Noris

Thank you for your answer. Sorry about the misunderstanding, my bad. I was able to delete the RAATserver directory. What I meant was that the symptoms remained. I repeated deleting of the directory twice.

I took the NUC home and it works well with the Dragonfly red and my Naim V1 DAC directly connected to the USB ports. So it seems to be an issue with the ARCAM DAC.

I disabled the DSP engine already. That did not help. Cannot remember if I enabled exclusive mode.

I will install the latest update the Arcam DAC and give you feedback.

Thanks
Menno

Hello @mjazz,

Just want to follow up with you here. Have you had a chance to update your Arcam DAC drivers and see if it resolved the issue? Please let me know!

Thanks,
Noris

Hi Noris
I didn’t have time yet, I am abroad till the 26th. But I sure will keep you posted. No way we can live without Roon anymore :wink:

Regards
Menno

Hi Noris
I am back and I tried following.

I updated the Arcam DAC (DAC was updated to the latest version of 2013), but the problem still exists.

I updated the firmware of the DAC itself. I assume you meant firmware when you talk about drivers. Or did you mean that I should install the windows drivers on the ROCK itself?

I took the DAC to my place and tried it on my devices:
sonicTransporter: works
microRendu: works
iMac: works

I am slowly running out of ideas. Is there a way to go back to the previous roon version?

Regards
Menno

Hello again @mjazz,

Thanks for updating the drivers and trying it on different devices, yes I meant firmware when I mentioned drivers, should have specified that a little more, my apologies. There is no way to roll back to previous Roon versions because the changes and bug fixes we make in new Roon App updates are considered very important and we want to make sure all of our users are on the newest versions at all times to avoid any discrepancies or issues that just affect user running older versions of our App. With that said, I am confident that we can get to the bottom of this issue and have you running up and running in our newest build.

This may be an unrelated suggestion, but I was just looking at some device screenshots from the ARCAM site and noticed an interesting toggle on the back of it.

What do you have your USB class toggle set to? I noticed you are using drivers for USB Audio 2.0, can you confirm that the USB class on the back of the ARCAM is set to USB II? Alternatively, if it is set to USB II can you see if you are experiencing the same skipping with it on USB I? Please let me know when you have a chance.

Thanks,
Noris

Hi Noris
the switch is set to class II.

Switching to USB 1.0 gives the same symptoms. All tracks are started but directly skipped to the next track. I deleted the RAATServer directory as well between switching, but that did not help either.
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Menno

Hello @mjazz,

Sorry to hear that switching the USB class has not solved the issue at hand. The next step here will be to see what exactly is going wrong in the Roon Log files. I have gone ahead and enabled diagnostics mode on your account and what that will do is that the next time your ROCK is online, a report will automatically be generated and sent to our servers for further analysis. I have started a case for you with our QA team and I will be sure to update you once I hear back from QA what could be causing the skipping of songs on your Arcam. I appreciate your patience here while your case reaches QA and they have a chance to investigate and we will be in touch after I receive a report of their analysis.

Thanks,
Noris

Hello @mjazz,

I have enabled a diagnostic function on your account that requires a restart of your core to function correctly. After restarting your core, go to the “Device Setup” screen for your ARCAM DAC, click the “Show Advanced” button, and set the “Disable MQA USB HID Protocol” option to “Yes”. Let us know if this changes the behavior you are seeing!

-John

Hi John
I have disabled the MQA USB HID protocol and it does not make a difference. The issue is still there. To be sure, I deleted the RAATServer directory as well, but that did not help either.

Thanks
Menno

Hi John

I now switched again to USB 1.0, which didn’t help. After switching back to USB 2.0, I thought I try it a last time for today. And it works.

No clue, why. Perhaps the USB switch on the Arcam? Which I never used before.

Anyhow the problem seems to be solved.

Thank you for your help
A happy roon user!
Menno

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For your records, switching off the MQA USB HID protocol brings back the problem.
Menno

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