Is it normal that you have to restart Roon every few days to avoid having music “skip” or “blurt” every 4-5 songs? I’m using a 2010 Mac Mini (old AF, I know) and the latest software available for that version of Mac OS. The music library is on the same hard drive. I never experienced anything like this when I was using iTunes up until a couple of months ago.
If I restart the software, I can play a number songs over the course of a handful of days, and then songs will start having these sudden, short “outbursts”. It’s not skipping and it only takes maybe half a second. It’s like a very temporary distortion.
If I stream internet radio, this issue will pop up much sooner after a restart of the software. I only use Roon for local ALAC and a few AIFF songs and internet radio, although I’ve stopped using it for the latter so I don’t have to restart the software so often. Luckily, the Mac Mini is connected to my projector, so I have access to the OS every day. It’d suck if I was running the Mac as a headless server.
You definitely might be running into some performance issues due to the machine being a bit older. Is Roon installed on an SSD or just a hard drive? As noted in our requirements page, we highly recommend that an SSD be used in order to get the best performance.
Do you have any other machine that meets our requirements you could temporarily test Roon with? It would help to determine if this is for sure a performance issue or if there might be something else going on.
It’s an old-timey hard drive. It usually uses about 5% of the CPU’s power when playing a song. Less when idle. The computer does nothing but play music once in a while.
Roon is running without a hitch on my 27" 2017 iMac, with a 1 TB SSD, but I also shut that down when I’m not using it.
Unfortunately, it seems like the Mac Mini is experiencing some performance issues which is why you’re experiencing this problem. The use of an SSD would likely help, but depending on how large your library gets and the functionality you want to use, the age of the machine may also result in other issues as well.
Since things work okay with the iMac I would continue to use that if possible, or try to use an SSD with the Mac Mini.
if you have any other questions please let us know!
You can use RoonBridge on the Mac Mini to play to it over the network. This way the processing won’t be handled on that device but you can still play to the connected DAC.
It should be a relatively simple process to set this up — On the Mac Mini you can install RoonBridge from our downloads page. You can then play to the DAC connected to the Mac Mini. You also don’t need to use the iMac for controlling Roon either — You can connect any remote to the Mac Mini Core to do this. It’s definitely worth a shot! If you have any questions please feel free to reach out, we’re always happy to help.
Now that RoonBridge is installed and running on the Mini, when you use your iMac Core and you go to Settings > Audio are you able to see devices connected to the Mac Mini?
I haven’t been able to set up my iMac Core. Been having trouble getting to the folder on the Mac Mini. I have the IP address, but I’ve been unable to type in the exact format needed to reach the folder.
I figured it out with the network share (always a hassle, so I usually try until it works and then forget about it for years), but now I can’t use my Hegel remotes to pause, play and go back or forward on playlists
I guess not having to fear songs squerking randomly is more important though. I can get my Hegel remote back on when I get a black Mac Mini and a really, really expensive NAS one day.
But I’ll try it out, thanks! 
