TIDAL tracks not playing [resolved: 790 improved]

Support
52

This can’t be our downloading… look at this:

That’s a 2.8gb in 2:09! more than fast enough for audio.

Your “Dreary Town” track is 4:32, and 75% in you had been playing for 3:24. In that 3:24, you should have been able to download over 3gb, and I don’t care what format that track is in, it’s not over 3gb.

This means your system shouldn’t have been anywhere near downloading anything when this skip happened.

Weird.

I did notice something else in your logs:

05/06 07:02:42 Trace: [System Output] [zoneplayer/raat] sync System Output: realtime=27966106510758 rtt=0us offset=-5024298489us delta=-23053us drift=-3634153us in 339.7385s (-10696.915ppm, -38508.895ms/hr)

38.5 seconds over an hour of clock drift! That’s a really bad clock.

We are digging deeper… there is something going on here.

53

I could use some help with another test.

  1. Play in Roon and wait until you get a skip.
  2. When you skip, shut down your Roon Core. Like, kill the app/server completely.
  3. Restart the Roon Core.
  4. Play the exact same track that just skipped.

Does it work? If it doesn’t, does it skip at the same point in the track?

54

Haha. I’ll kill my Macmini as soon as I notice a skip. I’ll keep you posted.

55

You don’t need to reboot the system, just restart the Roon Core. There is a cache that will be lost in the restart, and that’s the effect I’m trying to get.

56

Okay, will do. Have a nice weekend!

57

This evening, May 7, at 23:34 (or 23:33) local time, “Destiny” by Zero 7 skipped after 55%. I shut down Roon on my Macmini, logged out and logged back in. I restarted the same track. It played without interruption or skipping. I think it would have also played without skipping without restarting my Roon core (by adding as next to the queue), but I did not test that. Should I, the next time?

58

Extra test. “Regular Pleasures” by Patricia Barber skipped (completely - or almost) on May 8 at approximately 00:27(this was actually a Qobuz track, I think). I put it next in the queue. I skipped the track that was playing in the mean time (Melanie di Biassio). “Regular Pleasures” played perfectly without any interruption or skipping.

59

Thanks, that was helpful.

We use an API of TIDAL’s that gives us access to the FLAC files, but their app uses a different mechanism we don’t have access to. The FLACs are served up via a CDN and the CDN is dropping the connection on us randomly. It’s unclear why. Your tests shows that aggressive retries will indeed allow us to recover.

Let us play with this more and we’ll be back for more info if we need it. We’ll also talk to TIDAL to see what’s up with this mechanism and the CDN.

3 Likes
60

2 posts were split to a new topic: Slowness sometimes when playing tidal tracks

61

I guess I’ve to learn some vocabulary API, ISP, CDN…
Hopefully I’ll find an explanation. :wink:

62

That’s it for this part

2 Likes
63

InternetServiceProvider is like Telekom or Vodafone in Germany. The guys to deliver your internet at home.

CDN the infrastructure or services in the background to deliver media at great scale

64

To expand on Bernd’s definition: CDN = Content Delivery Network

1 Like
65

This is a good explanation, a simplified view is to think about an API as a contract between different pieces of software or online services. a made up Tidal example might be:

If you deliver this data (some precise form of user id and secret credentials plus track details) to Tidal, Tidal will offer you the track to stream/download.

That’s still possibly not that great/helpful on my part.

1 Like
66

Or if you think of software in an abstract way - UI (User Interface) is how it interacts with the user sitting in front of it (mouse, keyboard, display). The API is how it talks to fellow programs :wink:

2 Likes
67

This is the clearest simplification IMHO

68

@danny I double-checked. The “Regular Pleasures” track by Patricia Barber that skipped actually was a Qobuz track. It skipped almost immediately. While the next song, “Sweet Darling Pain [Alternate Take]” by Melanie de Biasio, was already playing, I moved “Regular Pleasures” to next in the queue and played it again… flawlessly.
As I have mentioned before, skipping in Qobuz also occurs sometimes, although very rarely (see test: Playback Skipped - #24 by Francois_De_Heel)
Maybe this complicates things even further, but I thought you should know.

PS: Today, May 8, around 12:00 at noon, I had another skip in a Qobuz track (“Ain’t No Sunshine [Live in Paris]” by Melody Gardot - played 25%). I am not sure this occasional Qobuz skipping has to be taken into account while analyzing the issue. So far, at least for me, skipping in Qobuz remains so rare that I consider it to be within the limits of what is acceptable.

1 Like
69

I can confirm that. I only have Qobuz and still experience tracks skipping from time to time.

[NUC8i7BEH 8GB RAM and Rock connected to Router Asus RT-ac88u, all 3 Raat endpoints wired to the router, no switches, Roon audio analysis disabled, small local files library. All software up to date]

My observations:
I have a Huawei modem in bridge mode (Telekom API internet.t-d1) through which I can track traffic in real time with HuaCtrl Pro.
For days everything goes fine, tracks are completely loaded right at the beginning with the usual speed around 100 Mbit/s and after that everything stays idle, download 0 until the next track starts.
(I set up this network just for Roon Rock, 3 wired Roon Raat endpoints and 2 remotes. For everything else I have a second DSL network with a different modem and router).

But then suddenly:

The download starts normally at the beginning of the track, but this time only with a maximum of 6 - 7 Mbit/s and then it stops. The track plays until the downloaded data is used up and then jumps to the next track. With this track, the same thing repeats, and so on, for about half to three quarters of an hour.
And that, although a speed test regularly checked for each track, results in a download rate of at least 70 up to 120 Mbps.
Which, however, are simply not requested/loaded by Roon.
Streaming via Qobuz directly at the same time works without problems.

So now my question @danny, @support:

What can cause such a continuous data consumption around 2 to 3 Mbit/s without peaks during these skipping times, almost consistently all the time?
As long as this behavior lasts, the tracks are not fully loaded but only a fraction.
Although the possible download rate would be far high enough and another player as well as the Qobuz app works and pulls the normal amounts of data.
As long as the continuous low data consumption around 3 Mbit continues, half to three quarters of an hour, Roon does not work without skipping.
As I said, audio analysis is off and there are no other consumers on this network.
Only Roon.
When I turn off my NUC Rock, data consumption stops immediately and drops to 0.

Same behavior, when I use my iPad not only as remote, but also as endpoint, all other raat endpoints switched off.

71

The Qobuz data point is useful information.

The data rates are a red herring.

74

I have a question about Roon and Tidal CDNs, since I’ve been experiencing strange Tidal behaviour in Brazil–but with Roon only, not the Tidal app. Does using Roon with Tidal change the Tidal CDN that is being used for the connection? For example, if the Tidal app is connecting me to a CDN in Brasil or a neighbouring country, is there any chance that when I am logged in through Roon that I might be connected to a more distant Tidal CDN–say in the U.S. or Europe?. I have no idea how this works.