a range of Bluesound equipment - node, power node, flex, mini, etc
All connected by wifi
remotes on MacBookPro, iPad, iPhone
Number of Tracks in Library
100 000 ish
Description of Issue
Starting yesterday, any music streamed through Roon has had some sort of interference or stuttering or electrical ripple which starts at about 15-20 seconds into a track and then repeats on approx 30 second cycle. On loud tracks its an almost missable distortion. On soft tracks its a very clear static stutter.
Over night before, there was a power failure. One of the drives on my NAS went critical (since replaced). However, looking at NAS logs and testing files and sources, these two issues now seem coincidental and not related. Files on the NAS when not played through Roon do not have this problem. Similarly, the problem does not seem to be with the Bluesound or other audio equipment, which play from other sources without this issue.
The problem effects tracks and Roon radio.
I am wondering whether it is possible that the electrical failure might have caused a fault in the Sonic transporter that houses the Roon core, or its power supply. Is this a plausible scenario for such a fault? I’ve been wanting to try switching the power supply to test this, but I do not have an equivalent to swap out - its a US piece and all my others are, of course, Aust, which is where I’m located. Suggestions on other ways to find out? Is there a way of seeing if the problem is in the sonic itself (rather than its power supply). Is that likely?
Could you install a Roon core on another device, e.g. a laptop for testing? At a guess I’d look at network bandwidth somewhere, little clicks and pops are often a sign that’s creaking. That’s just a guess though WiFi and Roon aren’t always a marriage made in heaven…
Thanks. I might try that, but the network has run like clockwork since I got Roon in 2017 - never had a network or wifi problem. And I can’t replicate the problem using non Roon network connections…
That’s not an uncommon situation. Roon is generally heavier on network resources than other solutions. Everything gets routed via the core for starters.
Thanks Mike. The core and the router are wired, but the core is not wired to the bluesound node. I guess that is what I would need to wire to test. I may have to procure some “wire” lol.
In the meantime I have abandoned Roon and got that Node to use its Bluos software to index my music o the NAS and play it without Roon (wifi). This is working without the interference. So it is pointing to the case that there is something wrong with the Sonic or its power source. Or so I think…
The good news is that the problem seems to be fixed!! The slightly frustrating element is that I’m not sure how.
There are two contending variables in play. Over dinner I had Roon and the Sonic turned completely off and unplugged. Meanwhile, Bluos was reindexing files from the NAS so that I could play using Bluos instead of Roon, and if necessary compare for the interference.
Also, I had installed a new drive on the NAS to replace the failing one, and it was commencing its repair of its storage pool. (However, I had become convinced the problem was not with the NAS, as explained).
Anyway, after a couple of episodes of the Great British Bakeoff (to restore my equilibrium after having watched the amazing but disturbing finale of Wakefield), I again turned to the situation - only to discover that I could no longer recreate the problem - either in Roon or via any of the other options.
So, good news!! Let’s hope it doesn’t return (and perhaps it was the NAS after all; or Sonic/Roon just needed a good long unplugged break after serving nonstop for a long time…).
Depending on the array type, rebuilding it with a new drive can be a very lengthy and resource intensive process.
I replaced a drive last week as it’s bad sector count was growing. The array rebuild time was about a day (12 X 4 TB drives in RAID10) on a Synology RS3617xs.