· I hear distortion or noise when I'm playing music
What type of Zone is affected by this problem?
· *All of my Zones* are affected.
Does the issue affect all file formats?
· The issue *only affects one file *format.
Which format is giving you trouble?
· FLAC
Is your device connected directly to the Roon Server via cable or over the network, or is it chained through another device (such as a streamer, Roon Bridge, or Roon Remote)?
· It is connected through a different device (e.g Rasberry Pi)
Does the device play audio from another source when using the same connection?
· The device has no problems with another audio source
Have you checked that Roon is whitelisted in any firewalls?
· I've checked the firewall and the issue remains
If the device has multiple output options, do the other options work as expected?
· Only one output type is affected while the other output type works as expected
Is the device using the latest firmware as per the manufacturer?
· Firmware is up-to-date but the issue remains
Do you have an approximate timestamp of when the issue last occurred?
· Approximately 8:21am PT
What are the make and model of the affected audio device(s) and the connection type?
· Aurender N200 endpoint - LAN hardwired
Describe the issue
Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline 192/24 When I attempt to play this particular album, it plays fine for a minute or two, stutters, stops completely, and then moves to next track. That track will then play for a while, and then the same thing happens again. This continues through the entire album, track by track.
To investigate, I have: 1) confirmed that my Roon Core, Router, and Aurender N200 Endpoint are all connected via wired Ethernet (Cat6). 2) confirmed that the issue is only with the 192/24 version of Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline via Qobuz. Other 192/24 Qobuz files play fine. 3) confirmed that the album plays perfectly fine when streamed: via the Qobuz web player and via the Aurender N200's native Conductor app.
Troubleshooting Attempted: I have maximized the Resync Delay (buffer) and performed a full Roon Core Cache folder deletion.
Thanks for your help!
Describe your network setup
This issue just arose yesterday. All components have been steady for months but include:
Welcome to the forum and thanks for reaching out. I tried to play the album you mentioned but it is working fine on my end. Further, I have activated diagnostics for your account and I am noticing dropouts on a few other albums such as ones from Bob Dylan.
There is something else odd here, it looks like Roon is attempting to scan your entire Documents folder. Can you please take a look over your Roon Settings → Stroage settings, do you have your entire Documents or hard drive added there? Ideally you should only have your Music folder there. May not be related to the issue at hand, but it is causing Roon to do a lot more scanning than necessary.
As for this specific issue, I am seeing you audio buffer is not filled up in time, usually this happens with poor connection to the streaming service’s servers. We have seen users have a better experience in the past if they change their Router’s DNS servers from the ISP provided ones to Cloudflare DNS, Quad9 or Google DNS. Can you please give this a try and let me know if it helps?
I tried the Google DNS, and while track playback lasted much longer, it busted. A message briefly displays as Roon skips to the next track - something along the lines of “having difficulty loading Qubuz content”. Bear in mind, playback is seamless using the Qubuz web player, and also using the Aurender (my Roon end point) Conductor app.
I just tried the problem track “Lay Lady Lay” again, and it played fine, after changing nothing. Crazy. Also, other 192/24 material (namely Supertramp - Crime of the Century) plays fine.
One more clue - maybe? I have a set of Sonos speakers in my garage. If I try to play Nashville Skyline there, it crashes within 10 or 15 seconds of initializing playback. Those speakers are served via WiFi. The signal is not super-strong out there either. That said, I rarely have any problems with other albums. In fact Roon is much more stable than using the Sonos app.
One more piece of potentially relevant information. While my router is fairly new (Asus RT AX55), my modem is not (Aris TM 3422). Could this be a bottleneck?
Thanks, and I will check back. I will try to play the album again tomorrow or Sunday.
Hi there - I tried Nashville Skyline again this morning and it crashed almost instantly. This is extremely odd. Any more ideas? Thanks so much for you help.
Quick update. I changed DNS again, to 1.1.1.1 and Nashville Skyline played fine, then Hurricane auto-played and crashed. Is this a Bob Dylan thing? How would that be possible? No other artist’s albums have crashed.
Thank you for the update. I have tried to review the diagnostic data from your account but without knowing the exact timestamp and track name, it is hard to understand where the issue is.
I’d like to ask for your help to ensure we gather the right information.
First, can you please reproduce the issue once more and note the time at which the error occurs? Then respond here with that time, and I’ll make sure we review the diagnostics related to that timestamp.
~9:35amPT ~1 min into track “Lay Lady Lay” - latest crash occurred. If you tell me how to extract the timestamp maybe I can retrieve the precise times from History? Thank you for your help!
I tried to retrieve fresh diagnostic data from your account, but it seems your Roon server is offline. Would you kindly bring it back online and let us know here?
Thanks so much for your patience here! We’re seeing some odd behavior occurring right around the time you started playback for Lay Lady Lay - take a look here:
Warn: [storage] [directory] Failed to extract audio format from 'F:\Windows from Music\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-s..-soundthemes-garden_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_f7a4bf1e15863e21\Windows Balloon.wav': UnsupportedFormat
It looks like you may have some unintentional windows system sounds nestled within one of your watched folders. Would you be able to double check this?
Specifically, we’re seeing a long list of errors surrounding this folder:
Music\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-s
I’d remove this folder from your watched folders, as it looks like a long list of windows system sounds that Roon isn’t able to process properly.
We’re also seeing a handful of poor connection traces during attempted playback:
Thanks for continuing to help! I tried to create a an exception for the Windows folder on my F: drive you referenced. I have no idea why these folders are there - I was unable to delete them, so hopefully the exception works. My internet speed tested at 800Mbps, so that is probably not the issue unless I am having intermittent problems. That said, this problem has only occurred with Bob Dylan albums which is just strange. Nashville Skyline is playing without issues presently - so maybe the Windows exception worked? Thanks again and I will let you know if the problem arises tomorrow. -Mark
Hi Mark, (Edit) the support team is out for Thanksgiving. Sorry I misread the holiday post.
There should never be anything other than music under a watched music folder.
This path…
Music\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-s
is all sorts of wrong. There should never be any foundational Windows directories and sub-directories under the music folder. If it is, Roon will over and over again try and process these files which could be a reason for the drop outs.
Which is weird since the Windows folder should be on the bootable C drive.
I would suggest investigating and correcting why there is a Windows system folder under Music. That should not be. There should be nothing under the music folder except music files.
Hi all - thanks for your continued help. To try and help reduce the number of variables I have done the following:
Completely removed the separate disk (F: drive) that Roon was scanning and contained Windows files. The problem persisted.
Checked playback once again using Qobuz web player - no issues.
Checked playback using Aurender Conductor - no issues.
Upgraded modem (I was going to do this anyway for general audio quality enhancement - for those of us who believe the router can have an influence). The problem persisted when playing back via Roon.
With the Music folder on my C: drive being the only remaining Roon-scanned folder, I removed a zipped music file that was there thinking maybe there was a problem when the zipped folder is encountered. Maybe that worked? I have no explanation, but Nashville Skyline is playing fine at the moment.
Note this has happened before though - the album plays through fine after some number of failed attempts - is some kind of local buffer created? I rebooted and restarted the album - so far, so good.
I also disabled 192 upsampling within Roon to try to eliminate variables. All of the results above apply with upsampling disabled.
I will leave my server on tonight. Thanks again for all the support.
Mark
