Connecting wirelessly: Roon client as Audio Device on Mac Mini
Connected Audio Devices
Roon client as Audio Device on Mac Mini:
Model
Mac Mini
CPU
M2 Pro
RAM
16GB
OS
macOS 13.5.2
Roon Version
2.0 (1311)
Number of Tracks in Library
18000
Description of Issue
I was listening to some music and everything went swimmingly when the music stopped.
The Roon remote (iPad) still showed that Roon ws playing a song, but no audio was played. After a few seconds Roon went to the next song and then to the next song and so forth – all without playing any sound. After a minute or so it showed the following message on the remote:
Eventully I was able to recover by quitting the Roon client/Audio Device app on the Mac Mini and starting it up again. No restart of the Core was necessary.
Why did this happen? And how can I prevent this from happening again?
Improperly configured networks or bad networking hardware can contribute to a wide range of problems, including:
Audio Dropouts
Remotes that don’t connect to the Core
Audio devices that don’t show up in Roon
Skipped tracks and playback interruptions.
Error messages including:
“Roon lost control of audio device”
“An audio file is loading slowly…” or “TIDAL media is loading slowly…”
“Too many failures. Stopping playback.”
“Playback has failed due to an unexpected error communicating…”
“Unable to connect to this channel. Check your internet connection”
If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms, you can save a lot of time and headache by running some basic tests on your network. The following steps will help you to troubleshoot and pinpoint the root cause of the problem.
I think the Celeron is the real issue.
From Roon’s advice on running Roon Server on a NAS:
" What will happen if Roon Server runs on a slower CPU (such as Atom or Celeron)?
Roon Server uses a lot more CPU than any other audio software. You can read about why we have a Core and why it requires so much more CPU than other software [[here|Why Core?]]. While Roon Server will work fine on these slower CPUs, consequences of running on them potentially include:
Stuttering or dropouts in audio playback
Slow response for searching
Slow loading of artist, album, composer, and work pages
Longer startup and connection times for remotes
Slower audio analysis for normalization/crossfading/other
Slower import of new music
Overall, the experience will not be as good as it can be. You can fix this by running on a better-suited CPU, such as an Intel Core i3 or i5."
Yep, that somewhat might be an explanation. But I am not convinced:
Restarting the Roon client on the M2 Mac Mini (which should have plenty of power!) sorted it out. So the Roon core on the Synology was the whole time humming away in the background .
This looks to me like it was an issue with the Client not the Core…
