Streams from Tidal loose sound after a few seconds

@support

I have Roon on windows 7 64bit on a core i7-2730qm 2Ghz, 6gb RAM, 128 gb SSD Toshiba laptop. Nothing runs other than Roon.
My library is on a FreeNAS PC shared thru Samba and mapped to Z:
Network is 1Gbit and WAN is also 1Gbit.

I used to have a Raspberry Pi with a HifiBerry DAC+ that ran piCoreplayer and had an airplay plugin to use as a roon endpoint.
Now I installed dieptPI with roon Bridge on it.
I also have a Huawei tablet for a remote and of course the System output of the Windows laptop.

When I play from Tidal sometimes all works great but most of the times,after a few seconds of playing(varies, it’s not always the same) the remote shows that the stream is playing but the sound stops and it does not come back…or sometimes come back.
When a new track starts, it resumes, or if I move the timebar it does resume playing with sound.

This happens with all my endpoints. But like I said, sometimes it doesn’t.
My router is an Asus RT-N66U with dd-wrt on it. NAS, CORE, BRIDGE all LAN connected.

I have even changed the buffering of the dietpi roon bridge and that seems to make everything work a bit better, meaning for a longer time. But then it happens again.

This morning it seemed this happened with the local files as well. Did not have issues with that again. Just with Tidal streams.

I don’t know what to search for and where to start. Are there any roon logs?
Can you guys help me?

Thanks

Hi @Rares_Popescu ---- Thank you for the report and sharing these observations you have made with us. The feedback is very appreciated, sorry to hear of the troubles.

Moving forward, just to clarify, you happened to notice this behavior with your local content as well, correct? Based on these symptoms you are describing it feels like you may be experiencing audio dropouts. Have you always experienced this behavior or is this something that has come about recently?

Can you please describe your network configuration/topology being sure to provide insight into any networking hardware you are currently implementing. I want to have a clear understanding as to how your devices are communicating and all the tools involved with making those connection possible.

-Eric

Ok,
I’ve been playing music from the NAS for 3 hours with no interruptions whatsoever to the rPI bridge.

New issue happens now with Tidal, besides the ‘playing with no sound’ issue. Some songs play a few seconds then skip by themselves.

So, I’m checking the WAN traffic graph on the router:
When the ‘playing with no sound’ issue happens; there is traffic on the LAN as if the stream from Core to Bridge is happening but drops on WAN as if it doesn’t get to the Core from tidal after a big 15Mbps spike when I start the track. The slider moves on the remote yet no sound is being outputted.

So I downloaded the Tidal app on the same PC with the Core to see if it works.
Guess what, it works! I don’t even have the HD subscription so no big deal traffic should be happening.

Traffic on the WAN while Tidal is playing is regulated spikes to about 8-15Mbps then drops to a few kbps then spikes again in a few seconds. I’m assuming it caches the stream then lets it go.

So I can conclude that Tidal works, Core works with NAS music. Yet Core with Tidal seem to have an issue.

What next @support ?

Hi @eric

Seemed it happened this morning with the dropouts from my NAS. I have a Transmission client in the network that does some little traffic for what the 1Gbit network can do. I then started playing music again in the afternoon.
Played flacs 16/44.1 24/192, DSF with no problem from my NAS.

Network is fiber->some media converter->Asus RT-N66-U DD-WRT Router:
-> Core/remote/zone laptop
-> Roon bridge rasp pi with HifiBerry DAC+
-> 1Gbit DLink switch-> NAS
-> I also have another idle rasp pi with Kodi on it.
+a few wireless phones and the Huawei remote for Roon

ALL the ‘->’ == Cat 6a thick copper cables

Here are my speedtest.net results right now while playing Tidal in the app:

About dropouts in general, yes I have experienced them before ROON times. They happened when I stream 1080p mkv files from my NAS to my Kodi Rasp Pi. But there is huge amount of stream there compared to the music files. Problem solves by itself in that case as kodi starts buffering then resumes playback. Here the problem is because the Pi’s network bus is small.

However, this does not seem to be the behavior with Roon as I have mentioned in my reply.
Any other info you need I can provide.

Thank you for your response

@eric I have to mention I have started using Roon yesterday. I currently am in the trial period for both roon and tidal and I want it so bad to work. :smiley:
Did a fresh windows install yesterday and then downloaded the latest 64 bit version of the core/control/output bundle.

Hi @Rares_Popescu ----- Thank you for the follow up and providing the requested information, both are very appreciated!

Moving forward, can you please verify the exact model of DLink switch you are implementing and furthermore, can you confirm what the experience is like if you temporarily bypass RPI w/RB and play some tidal content directly out of internal speakers of the core machine (i.e “Toshiba laptop”).

-Eric

One other observation is the core is running on sandy bridge which by minimum specs is under the ivy bridge…now that might not be an issue but I thought it’s worth noting for record.

@eric the switch is DLink GO-SW-5G 5 Gbit ports.
Do you think this one may be disrupting the flow? This is just between the NAS and Router.
I also remembered this morning that there is another 100MB switch between the router and Rasp Pi Bridge. This is a cheap “ipTIME” switch.

However, I have been playing all morning Tidal and NAS music on the Toshiba laptop like you requested. Worked like a charm! NO HICKUP AT ALL!

So I started transferring the stream to a phone with a wireless speaker and then to the Rasp Pi Bridge. AGAIN, IT WORKS GREAT! I’ve been playing for hours.

Can it have something to do that I downloaded Tidal and logged in there so maybe I’m in an OK IP list at tidal? Just crossed my mind.

So, it seems to work all good now. I’ll be on the lookout and if the problems come again, I’ll take out the switches and test.

Still, the behavior from last night was like Core was streaming to Bridge but not getting a stream from Tidal.

Thanks for your help. If you have any advice or tips for me, please let me know.
Also, if you need other info just let me know.
I’ll keep you up to speed.

Hi @Rares_Popescu ---- Thank you for the the follow up and sharing these recent observations with me. Very appreciated!

Moving forward, I first wanted to touch base and see how things have been holding up since your previous post. Are things still stable? Secondly, I had asked about the switch because I wanted to verify if the device was unmanaged or managed. We have seen some issues in the past with managed switches so I wanted to confirm :innocent:

-Eric

@eric thanks for the interest in the matter.

I’ve been playing music like crazy since then. Both NAS and Tidal sourced.
(Almost)No problems since my last reply!

I’ve had this issues yesterday with one song, ONCE, on a Hackintosh that is after the DLINK switch (Wasn’t there when I opened the thread). Looked like it played(from Tidal) then no sound but the slider was moving. So I just moved the slider again at the beginning and then it all went smooth.

Other than this, I’ve had the Tidal song skip to the next one in queue after a few seconds. This again happened only once or twice on an Android with Bluetooth speakers.

I’d say that this two incidents compared to the amount of music I’ve been listening to are negligible. So I am happy with this.

The switch is not managed, no. Good to know about the managed/unmanaged switches thing.

I’ll let you know if this problem shows up again.

Btw, I had the android app crash a few times, mostly when I move the stream from one room to another. I guess this could be a different thread.

I think you guys are doing a great job with this software so I want to report back to you and help you debug and improve. I’m a developer myself and I know how shitty it is for someone to dis your app on the count of a bug.

Thanks again,
Rares

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