Sudden loss of audio output

Apologies if this is an issue that has been described previously, I’m not sure what to call it, so I’m challenged to search for it.

Twice in the last 2 days, seemingly unrelated to anything I am doing, Roon stops playing. It is usually between tracks. This time it was at the conclusion of a Tidal MQA 48/24 track and the beginning of a local low res mp3 file. At this point, Roon will move through the tracks in my queue, none of them actually playing. If I quit and re-start Roon, my audio output is no longer available. If I re-start my core, then everything is fine again. This has happened a handful of times since the update to 1.3, which for me on my very simple system has been otherwise rock solid.

Here’s my setup:

I’m running the latest build of Roon on a 2012 2.9GHz i5 iMac with 12GB ram. I’m up to date on macOS, 10.12.3. I’m playing via the optical output of the iMac to a Peachtree Deepblue2 bluetooth speaker that happens to have an optical input as well. My audio files are on an external USB drive. My library is about 41K, 18K local files, a mix of red book, hi-res, and some mp3/aac files with the rest added via Tidal.

While I don’t mind restarting my iMac every few days, sometimes I’m in the middle of work, (like right now!) and would prefer to listen to music and get work done over not being able to do either while my machine re-starts.

Suggestions are always appreciated, thanks!

Hi @kneville ----- Thank you for the report and apologies for the troubles here. I know from our past conversations on community you are also making use of a home Roon setup via a MBP if I am not mistaken. Have you noticed this behavior while using the software at home as well or has this only been observed while you are at work?

-Eric

Good question, and I’m not sure. I think so, but I’m not certain. Sorry, that’s not particularly helpful. If I do encounter this issue on my other setup, I’ll be sure to update you.

It did just happen again on the iMac. An mp3 file ended, waiting for the next track and heard nothing, looked up at the screen and Roon had run through the remaining songs in the queue without playing anything. I’m not sure what the resolution of the track that was queued up was. At that point my output zone is still visible, but I can’t access any of its settings. On a restart of Roon, I just see the blue box, ‘Select an Audio Zone’, at the bottom of the screen. My desired zone is not available, just the System Output, and that cranks through tracks without playing anything either. I’m sure that after I restart the iMac right now, everything will be fine. Any suggestions?

4 posts were split to a new topic: Audio zones disappearing on Mac Mini

@support - Just happened again on my home setup - core on 2012 MacBook pro running latest version of Sierra and Roon. Was playing my library from Radio and a Tidal track was followed by a local 96khz/24bit track. Audio playback stopped, Roon just chews through files without playing anything and on re-starting Roon all my local zones are gone. Requires a re-boot of the core to get everything back.

Interestingly, lot’s of other audio issues at this point - can’t get movie files to play in my Photos library. Sound preference pane in System preferences doesn’t show any output or input choices, not even local microphone or speakers, only Apple TV as an output device. Audio Midi setup doesn’t show any audio devices at all. All this is fixed with a re-boot. I wonder if this is something the OS is doing to Roon or something Roon is doing to the OS? Can’t wait for ROCK so I can move this whole shebang off of my Mac!

Hi @kneville ----- Thank you for your patience and my apologies for the troubles here. I would like to grab a set of logs from you and will be contacting you via PM momentarily with instructions.

-Eric

Eric,

This thread seems to describe my situation exactly so I thought I’d reply here.

I just set up an upgraded Antipodes DXe running Roon Server and Roon Ready, controlled via my MacBook Pro, and outputting USB to an MSB Analog DAC. Setup went without a hitch a few days ago. Listening to Tidal today and between songs output stopped. I tried selecting a local file, Roon runs through all tracks in a few seconds and then nothing. Now it wants me to select a zone and my Antipodes does not show up as a networked device. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ron

@Ronald_Luongo Your DAC may have lost sync with the Antipodes, which can then result in this behaviour. I suggest you power the MSB off/on, and then see if you are able to play tracks OK.

Tony, power off/on didn’t work but unplugging the USB cable did. Any idea what might cause this to happen? Thanks.

Hi Ron, that would have been my next suggestion … different DACs seem to require different ways of re-syncing. We believe this can occur when a brief network delay, when streaming Tidal for example, can result in loss of signal between the Antipodes and the DAC.

2 posts were split to a new topic: Loss Of Output with iMac and Mojo

A post was split to a new topic: Issues with playback to Audiolab M-DAC+

I am having the same audio output issue with Roon running here. In my setup Roon runs on a QNAP NAS. In the beginning things are fine and Roon renders sound via its USB-connected DAC (an Audiolab M-DAC+). But at times - and not sure why as I cannot systematically reproduce - the next song would just remain silent - and the ones after will just go straight to the end without rendering any sound either. The DAC says ‘unlocked’ at that time - just as if it was not connected to any USB source.
To get rid of the issue, I have to reboot the NAS running Roon. Powering the DAC off/on does not help, but reading this post today, I just figured that unplugging/replugging the USB cable actually does the trick too.
Note that rendering to other Roon output devices works, so the issue is local to the USB device / Roon output.
The RoonServer logs are totally silent about the issue but the RAATServer logs show an “error in snd_pcm_hw_params: Input/output error (-5)” when the problem starts. See the log below.
This issue happens more and more often. I don’t believe seing any before the 1.3 release either. Any idea ?

10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] alsa output setup: format is pcm 44100/24/2
10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] opening [hw:CARD=A20,DEV=0] 44100/24/2
10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] prefer larger samples = 0
10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] [ALSA] [hw:CARD=A20,DEV=0] using hw pcmformat S32_LE bitspersample 24
10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] [ALSA] [hw:CARD=A20,DEV=0] Requesting 2 periods
10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] [ALSA] [hw:CARD=A20,DEV=0] Requesting 1764 frames/buffer (882 frames/period)
10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] [ALSA] [hw:CARD=A20,DEV=0] Initialized with 2 periods with 882 frames/period and 1764 frames/buffer
10/21 23:57:57 Error: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] error in snd_pcm_hw_params: Input/output error (-5)
10/21 23:57:57 Warn: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] [lua@0x7f6e38004a38] [127.0.0.1:33469] setup failed: RAAT__OUTPUT_PLUGIN_STATUS_FORMAT_NOT_SUPPORTED
10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] [lua@0x7f6e38004a38] [127.0.0.1:33469] SENT [6] {“message”:“RAAT__OUTPUT_PLUGIN_STATUS_FORMAT_NOT_SUPPORTED”,“status”:“UnexpectedError”}
10/21 23:57:57 Trace: [RAAT::AUDIOLAB USB Audio 2.0] [lua@0x7f6e38004a38] [127.0.0.1:33469] GOT [7] {“request”:“setup”,“format”:{“sample_type”:“pcm”,“sample_rate”:44100,“bits_per_sample”:16,“channels”:2,“sample_subtype”:“none”}}

Let’s keep this in one thread and continue here:

I’ll close this thread here, since it is quite old.