Tidal media is loading slowly (ref#UD1ORR)

Support
1

What best describes your playback issue?

· Music stops playing unexpectedly

What type of Zone is affected by this problem?

· *All of my Zones* are affected.

Does the issue affect all file formats?

· The issue affects *multiple/all* file formats.

Does the issue happen with local library music, streaming service music, or both?

· *Only streaming* music is affected.

Please select the streaming service(s) with which you're encountering playback problems.

· TIDAL

Have you tried logging out and back in again to your streaming service in Roon Settings?

· Logging out and back in had no impact, the issue remains

What are the make and model of the affected audio device(s) and the connection type?

· $2K+ audiophile-build Windows 11 PC

Describe the issue

"Tidal media is loading slowly" problem

Describe your network setup

1Gb Sonic fiber, Asus gaming pro routers, 3ms latency

1 Like
2

Yep me too

3

Have you tried rebooting your router and Roon server?

4

I tried rebooting the router, switch, and fiber modem. The Roon server resides on my audio PC, so that gets rebooted every day.

What’s interesting is when this occurs, its seems tied to certain songs. I can repeat this song over and over and it’ll fail to finish streaming the song from Tidal. Yet the next songs could be fine…until another song fails to finish streaming.

1 Like
5

Hi @mountainideas,

Thank you for your post. Please provide the name of a track that’s failing to play so our team can pinpoint the event in diagnostics.

Please also elaborate on the relative arrangement of your network hardware. Does this issue occur when you play to the system output of your RoonServer machine?

6

At Your Worst by Calum Scott. It still has trouble playing it through today. The song is tagged as in my library. On Tidal, it has no problems playing back (in fact, Tidal never had any problems streaming and playing any songs on my system).

7

Hey @mountainideas,

Thanks for sharing the timestamp! We were able to review a fresh diagnostics report from your Roon Server, and observed the following:

Warn: [Nagra HD DAC] [zoneplayer/raat] Too many dropouts (>3s dropped out in the last 30s). Killing stream
Trace: [Nagra HD DAC] [zoneplayer/raat] too many dropouts. stopping stream

During playback of the Calum Scott track, we’re seeing traces of additional playback to your Combo384 ASIO 1.03, which is also experiencing dropouts. Do you experience the same issue if you limit playback to one zone?

As a next step, I’d see about simplifying your network setup, and get a direct ethernet connection from your Roon Server to your router, as well as the Nagra DAC if possible, then see if the issues persist. :+1:

8

My network is Sonic 1Gbps fiber modem > Asus GT-AX11000 Pro wifi router > network switch > Windows 11 PC > USB to Nagra HD DAC >…

(I also recently added a Asus RT-AX86U Pro between the network switch and the PC, configured as a backbone via ethernet. But the problem occurs in either situation).

The streaming problem occurs even if its playing via HDMI to my Gigabyte M32UC monitor via standard Intel Display Audio Window drivers, so the DAC or the USB interface doesn’t appear to be the issue.

9

Hey @mountainideas,

This occurred even without the network switch in the network chain?

We’re not able to connect to your Roon Server to enable diagnostics, could you please reproduce the issue, share the track name, and then please use the directions found here and send over a set of logs to our File Uploader?

If there’s a setting to allocate network priority to your Windows 11, that may help as well. :+1:

10

The problem occurs through Tidal (not music on my NAS drive). It occurs whether the audio is set to my monitor via HDMI or to my DAC via USB.

Today at 9/4/2024 between 11:23AM - 11:43AM it was not able to play “At Your Worst” (same song) via my Gigabyte monitor via HDMI. I’ve uploaded the log files via File Uploader under my email address (starts with mountainideas…)

My Windows PC is connected via ethernet to the priority gaming port of the Asus router.

11

Hey @mountainideas,

It looks like you sent over a set of Roon logs - close! We’re after a set of your Roon Server logs, this will provide additional playback information.

Could you please send over a set of Roon Server logs? We’re still not able to connect to your server from our end.

Thank you!

12

I’ve uploaded the RoonServer logs under the name mountainideas. Today, the entire album “Just A Little Lovin’” by Shelby Lynne (9/8/24 10am-10:15am) could not play. Each song would start for a few seconds, report Tidal media is loading slowly, and skip to next song and repeats until the end of the album.

13

I don’t know if its related, but when I close the Roon application in Windows. The music sometimes continues to play. Under Task Manager, I can still see Roon active.

14

It should always continue to play. The Roon server, which performs the actual playback, is a separate process. This is on purpose.

15

If you want to access my Roon Server, let me know when so I can keep my Windows PC running.

If I shut down Roon, how do I shut down, restart, or modify any settings of the Roon Server?

Seems like 192kHz 24bit files stop more frequently than others. I was able to play Just A Little Lovin entirely via Tidal at the same 192kHz 24bit without a problem.

17

Hey @mountainideas,

Thanks for sharing a set of Roon Server logs! Another review around the time you were attempting to play ‘Just A Little Lovin’ shows similar lack of bandwidth related errors, causing the failure in playback:

Warn: FTMSI-B-OE ti/7B8EB376: poor connection kbps:3835.0 (min:7304.0)
Warn: [System Output] [zoneplayer/raat] Too many dropouts (>3s dropped out in the last 30s). Killing stream
Trace: [System Output] [zoneplayer/raat] too many dropouts. stopping stream
Warn: [zone System Output] Track Stopped Due to Slow Media

Based on the snippets above, it looks like you need to double your network bandwidth in order to achieve more stable playback.

If you head into your Roon Settings>Services>Tidal, can you review your playback format settings? What are they set to? See if setting a lower resolution allows for smoother playback.

Do you by chance have another machine you could temporarily setup to run as your Roon Server, to test to see if the same issue occurs across different machines?

18

Benjamin, I don’t think its a bandwidth issue.

Roon is the only application with the problem. Tidal Windows application works perfectly streaming the same songs at the same bit rate at the same Windows machine. I can also stream 4K videos without any problems, which requires more bandwidth. I’m connected to 1Gbps fiber via Ethernet hardline.

Any other suggestions? Currently, Roon is not very usable.

19

Hey @mountainideas,

While streaming 4k videos doesn’t require more bandwidth, it’s still possible that you’re not seeing these issues in other apps because they use different buffering methods. However, the logs from your server tell a different story. They show multiple large drops in speed per hour, which prevents Roon from buffering tracks properly.

Unlike TIDAL and Qobuz apps, which download tracks directly to your device, Roon’s setup requires tracks to be downloaded to your Roon Server first, then sent to your device for playback. If the network has issues either during the track download or while streaming to the endpoints, playback will fail.

Here are our suggestions for next steps:

  1. Ensure that the router firmware is up-to-date and non-ISP DNS servers are being used
  2. Try to temporarily use a different router to see if it triggers any change in behavior (you can connect it to your modem, connect the Nucleus there and then use a remote via new router’s WiFi connection)
  3. Try to use Roon on a different physical location, or provide it another source of network access (such as your phone’s hotspot via another PC Roon Server) or you can use a WISP client to convert the hotspot to Ethernet output.