The fabulous app who became a nightmare

[Marc_Woerner]

Roon Core Machine

Apple iMac (24", M1, 2021) 8GB, macOS Monterey v12.6

Networking Gear & Setup Details

AVM Fritzbox 7590

Connected Audio Devices

iPhone 13, iPad Air 4th gen, Cambridge Audio CXN v2 via WLAN

Number of Tracks in Library

20.000

Description of Issue

Roon was before the release of v2.0 and ARC the best music player and library I knew.
With roon v2.0 and roon ARC this changed overnight.

As a project manager for software development I can’t even find a reason to have two apps.
What was wrong with adding a download button to the existing roon app and on the go I only see downloaded music?

Instead roon released a barely functioning new app in beta state. The problems I am having:

• Roon core not waking up when I access it on iPhone or iPad (on Mac I enabled wake up on LAN)
• ARC downloads music very slowly (if at all)
• iPhone gets very warm when downloading music (because of the file conversion? I’d expect the mac does it and sends it then to the iPhone)
• Keep getting on ARC slow connection although nothing else is using my LAN. (I have a stable LAN/WAN connection everywhere else)
• On the go ARC keeps logging me off and after re-login I can’t even get to my downloaded music because on a full screen view the app searches for the remote roon core (I don’t want a door from outside to my iMac’s HDD so remote access is not enabled.)
• If ARC is not logging me off on the go I don’t see any covers of downloaded albums.
• Per default ARC decides download quality and it looks like that if HDD space is available ARC downloads in full res. Thanks for that because after a few albums iPhone throws a message that hdd is full.
• When I change the quality to CD or less already downloaded albums I must delete and download again. There is no re-convert for downloaded music
• When downloading albums roon core sporadically goes to sleep and I have to manually wake it up again.
• When I rename a downloaded playlists (via the roon app on mac) the new name appears in ARC but new added tracks after the rename are not downloaded and I can’t even do this manually because ARC „thinks“ all is fine (tapping on the download all button above the list of playlists in the ARC app doesn’t fix it)
• Sporadically ARC can’t access at all roon core on iMac although I work on the mac and roon is open. Have to manually close the app on iPhone and reopen.
• When ARC logged me off and I have to relogin I keep getting an email informing me that a NEW login appeared. (it looks like that ARC is not storing any login credentials at all, which leads to other problems)

Besides all the serious issues I mentioned above from my point of view ARC is missing important features like:

• Filter/sort downloaded music by albums or playlists (having all in one single table view doesn’t help)
• Give us the possibility to download all faved songs (there is no playlist or any possibility to do this)
• Sync tags or artists (download all albums with these tags or from this artist)
• ENSURE that downloaded music can be played without having remote roon core enabled (see problem above, what was the development decision behind this?)

Do others also have these problems or is someone playing a trick on me? I do understand the complexity of software development and all these issues are normal and understandable: With new software in beta status.
Was roon pushed to release it so early?

Thanks for reading.
Marc

[Martin_Webster]

@Marc_Woerner, welcome to the Roon community.

If you are experiencing problems with Roon ARC, I suggest you raise a #support request with one problem per post. Likewise, if there are features you’d like to see, please post in #feedback:feature-suggestions.

[Bill_Janssen (Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)]

Hi, Marc.

Lots of sympathy for your points, but I think we need to take a longer view of what’s going on here.

I have no inside information, but there are two things that jump out at me. First of all, Roon bumped the major version number. That’s a biggie. But there appear to be no big changes to the Core software… Secondly, the new ARC app is built with new technology, app-forward technology. My guess is that it’s just the start of a complete re-build of all the UI software. Perhaps of the whole architecture.

Yes, there will be teething problems. My grandfather used to say, never buy the first model year of an automobile. Similarly, I’m sure that future releases of the ARC app will be better implementations.

[Jim_F (- This forum no longer works for me.)]

Delete Roon ARC from your phone and you won’t have to deal with any of these issues. Also, if you don’t like Roon 2.0 for some reason, install Roon 1.8 Legacy on your Roon core and Roon control devices.