Track stops and skips to next one

[Rainer_Huppert]

MacBook Pro 2011, 2,6 GHz Intel Core i7 with MacOS Mojave 10.14.4

Audio Collection (iTunes Mediathek) on Synology NAS DS 1512+ connected over Gigabit Ethernet - Fritz!box 7490 / Netgear Gigabit Hub

Audio goes out over HDMI to Onkyo AV Receiver TX SR-805

After playing some tracks suddenly Roon “hangs” a few seconds in the middle of a track and then skips to the next track. A message says: Audio data loading slowly…
Also sometimes Roon is “crackling”. After stopping and starting another track the sound is clean again - also with the before crackling track.

I’m totally frustrated because Roon ist the best Music App I ever found and so I just paid 500 $ for it.
Please help me!

Audirvana+ and Amarra luxe are playing the same tracks without errors since years.

[noris]

Hello @Rainer_Huppert,

Thanks for contacting us regarding this issue, I have a few follow-up questions as to narrow this behavior down further:

• Does the same behavior occur for both local library and streaming (TIDAL/Qobuz) content?

• Does this occur with tracks stored on the Macbook itself as well or only tracks that are stored on the NAS?

• Does the same issue occur for other zones or is this limited just to the Onkyo zone?

• We have seen the Fritzbox router you have require some special settings applied to it as mentioned in our Networking Best Practices guide. Can you check to see if you have the ability to disable “Software Packet Acceleration” in the Fritz Web Interface?

Thanks,
Noris

[Rainer_Huppert]

Hey Noris,

thank you for answering.

1. I don’t use Tidal at home longer than a few minutes - it is for my mobile entertainment. So I can’t answer this question until now. I’ll try to find out and let you know.

2. I don’t have any tracks stored on my Macbook - everything is on my NAS.

3. The issue occurs for all zones

4. I didn’t find any settings for “Software Packet Acceleration”. I searched very intensely in the “Expert”-View. Also in the Fritz!box help and the description of the actual OS I didn’t find anything like this…
   Maybe you can tell me where to find it.

[noris]

Hi @Rainer_Huppert,

Thanks for letting me know that info. It would be good to know if this occurs just for the NAS media or for all types of media. If you can copy a few tracks to your Macbook and that plays as expected then we know to take a closer look at the Macbook Roon App -> NAS Communication.

The Software Packet Acceleration may not be available anymore, this setting was available only on Fritz OS 7 and may have changed with subsequent Fritz firmware updates so if it’s not visible, then it’s likely been removed.

Do let me know how the testing goes with TIDAL/Local Macbook content.

Thanks,
Noris

[Rainer_Huppert]

Hi Noris,

I tested everything now and it seems the problems only occurs with the Synology NAS.
I played many tracks from the Macbook HD and listened to a Tidal-Album with no problems. After starting an album from my regular collection on the NAS it stopped during the first track, skipped to the next one and even that one was suddenly stopped. An error message popped up which said loading is slow…

That is strange because I never had this problem. I have very many Hi-Res tracks and dsf-data from SACDs and can play them all without any dropout in each Music-App, may it be Audirvana, Amarra, JRiver Media Player, VLC, IINA and even iTunes.
I really hope you can solve this problem because I would like to use Roon as my Standard-Player in the future. And there’s no alternative to the NAS because my music collection is too big (10 TB).
And the stopping tracks are the only problems - every other function works perfectly.

Greetings from Germany
Rainer

[noris]

Hi @Rainer_Huppert,

Thanks for confirming that the issue only happens when the NAS is in the mix, this is a good data point to have.

Since you are seeing the “media is loading slowly…” error, I believe this could be due to the speed at which the file arrives from your NAS to Roon and is being processed. I have a few troubleshooting techniques here to narrow the issue down further:

1. You mentioned that you are using a Netgear Gigabit Hub to facilitate the connection after the Fritzbox. Can you try connecting your NAS directly to the Fritzbox Router and let me know if the same behavior still occurs? Sometimes switches go bad or are not configured properly and I want to eliminate this variable.

2. How is your Macbook Pro connected to the network in this setup? If you are on WiFi, can you temporarily try connecting it via Ethernet and let me know if you experience the same behavior? It might be possible that there’s not enough bandwidth on the WiFi to stream the file from the source.
   I would try connecting it to the switch and then also to the router directly to see if there is any change.

3. Although it is unlikely, I would also perform a S.M.A.R.T check on your NAS to see if there are any hardware-related issues associated with it. It might be that a RAM module has gone bad or there are sectors on the drive causing this issue. Unlikely, but worth a check.

I look forward to hearing your results!

Thanks,
Noris

[Rainer_Huppert]

Hi again Noris,
(hi Waldemar)

1.: I’ll try to connect the NAS to my Fritz!box tomorrow, hoping there will be no new problems with other settings, apps, devices etc. I don’t like to change my perfectly running system for 1 app which makes problems. I think the error is in the Roon-System, because each other Apps are running without any problems. If the audio-data are loading fast enough for Audirvana or Amarra or JRiver Mediaplayer, they should do that for Roon too, except Roon has a bug at this point. Can it be that the buffering is the reason for loading problems? Anyway I’ll let you know if the direct connection to the Fritz!box works.

2.: My Macbook is always connected via ethernet at home to get a stable connection.

3.: a S.M.A.R.T check is automatically made every month. At the 1st of April everything was fine.

I can give you a new info which I found out. Mostly the stopping and skipping only happen when I begin to listen to music and it will happen somewhere in the first 10 tracks. If I stop it and try to start the same track again from the beginning it doesn’t work. I have to start another track first and then get back again. Maybe one of the next tracks will stop too and I have to repat the procedure.
After these nervy actions the system normally works without those errors (until the next day everything repeats again).
Hope that helps…

Best luck
Rainer

[Rainer_Huppert]

Hi Noris,

I connected my NAS directly to my Fritz!box and it didn’t change anything…

Best regards
Rainer

[noris]

Hi @Rainer_Huppert,

Thank you for confirming that info and for running that test with the router directly. I am wondering if perhaps the SMB version you have active on the NAS could be causing this issue.

Can you please check your Synology’s Advanced Settings and let me know if you have configured it to use the SMBv2 protocol? The settings should look something like this:

Thanks,
Noris

[Rainer_Huppert]

Hi Noris,

the Minimum SMB protocol was SMB1 - the rest is identical.
I changed it to SMB2 now and will test it tomorrow, hoping you found the solution.

Thanks for now - I’ll come back to you tomorrow.

Rainer

[Rainer_Huppert]

Hi Noris,

I’m sad to say it didn’t help. After setting Maximum and Minimum protocol to SMB2 the 3rd track stopped playing and Roon skipped to the next one telling the loading was slow…
Playing the same album with iTunes or Audirvana was no problem.

Regards
Rainer

[noris]

Hi @Rainer_Huppert,

Sorry to hear that changing the SMB type has not yielded any change here. I have a few other suggests here to try and narrow this down further:

• Does the NAS have an SSD or is it using a spinning disk?

• What else is going on the NAS when this issue is occurring? By this I mean do you have other applications active on the NAS running at the same time as Roon?

• Are you by any chance making use of port aggregation on the NAS? Is there just one Ethernet cable connected to it?

• Would you by any chance have another PC around the house that you can use to temporarily host the Roon Core on? This would give us a good data point and help eliminate the Core as a variable here.

• Generally speaking, we’ve seen ISP provided routers to be unstable when compared to consumer-grade routers. If you have another router that you can temporarily use to verify this aspect it would be good just to make sure that the bandwith issue isn’t stemming from the router itself. Or a simpler test could be – if you take your Core and NAS over to a friend’s network that has a consumer-grade router, do you experience the same issues?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks,
Noris

[Rainer_Huppert]

Hi Noris,

1. The NAS has 5 spinning disks - no SSD

2. I don’t have other apps active on the NAS except iTunes which is running on the Macbook but using the NAS for the mediathek which is also used by Roon - but not at the same time of course.

3. There’s only 1 Ethernet cable connected and no Wlan.

4. no, I don’t have another “PC” around the house - I prefer Macs… - but I don’t have another Mac around the house

5. my router isn’t provided by my ISP - I bought it in a shop and it is a regular Fritz!box 7490 by AVM - these are the best routers you can get here in Germany. That’s why I don’t have another router because I don’t need a worse one. This router serves my whole IT without errors since a few years. My next friend lives 100 km from here, so this is really no option. I don’t want to disassemble my complex system and travel with it through Germany.

I don’t understand why you are searching for the error in my system all the time, because I have told you, that all my audio-apps are working fine. And they all use the same files on the NAS. There are never ever dropouts while listening to music. That’s why I’m sure, the problem lies somewhere inside the Roon system.

I really wanna help you to locate the error but please understand that I don’t like to work every day for that because I have much work to do with my regular job. I only would like to hear good music to relax when I come home. And of course I would like that with the best sound my system produced until now - and that is Roon. Otherwise I wouldn’t have paid so much money for it. And that’s why I think it should work perfectly. For me that means that it works better than all those other apps like Audirvana or Amarra. The higher price is for the better sound and the wonderful administration of my music. Playing the files is a basic standard function from my point of view.
As I wrote some days ago, I think that maybe this problem could be solved with better buffering options or something like that.

I’m really sorry but I’m totally frustrated - this is no fun anymore.

Anyway
I send you my greetings from Germany and I hope your specialists will find the reason for this evil behaviour.

Rainer

[noris]

Hello @Rainer_Huppert,

Just wanted to check in with you here to let you know that I haven’t forgot about your report here, I’ve been actively discussing your case with the team and I am planning go get some more feedback from the devs on the best way we can troubleshoot this issue.

I understand that this issue can be frustrating, but we have quite a few people running similar configurations to yours and there haven’t been many reports, we just need to figure out what is set up differently here when compared to other installs.

One data point I would like to have for this issue is seeing what the diagnostics from your Core reports when the issue occurs. Before I enable this feature for your account, can I please ask you to reproduce this behavior once more and then note the exact local time in your country when you experience the media loading slowly issue? E.g. 11:46PM on 4/17/19.

Also, just to confirm the exact failure state, this issue does not occur for all tracks but just some and there doesn’t appear to be any kind of pattern (higher sample rates, in between track transitions, different media format, ect?). This issue presents itself as the track starting to play back, it plays as expected for a while and then skips to the next track. How long is the time that the track usually plays back for before the skip? 10 seconds? 30 seconds? Instant?

As soon as I have this info I can enable diagnostics mode and forward the logs for review. I appreciate your patience during this process and hope to have this issue resolved as quickly as possible for you so you can enjoy your music collection once more. Please let me know the above info when you have a chance.

Thanks,
Noris

[Rainer_Huppert]

Hi Noris,

thanx for coming back to me!

Here are some data which I hope will help. Tell me if you need more. I can always reproduce these errors just by listening to any kind of music with every kind of data. Nearly all of my music is coded as ALAC (Apple Lossless), often in Hi-Res quality (24bit-88.2kHz/96kHz/192kHz) and I have about 500 albums as DSF files (from SACD).
Mostly I listen to complete albums. That’s why there usually isn’t any change of media format except when an album ends and I start another one.
The issue doesn’t occur in each track and there is no rule I can see. But it happens more often after starting Roon and sometimes everything will be ok after the first 3 or 4 errors for the rest of the day. But on other days it suddenly happens again after hours.

These data are from today:
04/19/2019 iPad Pro 2018 over Wlan

Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising ALAC 24bit 44.1kHz (from NAS):

10:12 AM - 1st track at ca. 3:30 skipping to 2nd track
10:20 AM - 2nd track stops at ca. 1:00 - skipping after 50 seconds to 3rd track - stops after 10 seconds
10:39:50 AM track 4 after 1 minute skipping to track 5 starting after 50 seconds and stopping after 3 seconds - have to start manually again…

TAKING A BREAK for some hours

04/19/2019 MacBook Pro Ethernet

Troye Sivan - Bloom ALAC 24-44.1 MQA

06:01:05 PM track 10 (last one) after 55 seconds - nothing more to skip to…. / starting track 10 manually plays without errors till end

Good luck
Rainer

[noris]

Hi @Rainer_Huppert,

Thank you for letting me know those timestamps, now that I have this information I have gone ahead and enabled diagnostics mode for your account and what this action will do is next time your Core is active, a set of logs will automatically be generated and uploaded to our servers for analysis.

I will be sure to let you know once those logs have been reviewed by the tech team and we have a better idea of what could be going on here. Thank you again for your help here so far in narrowing possible causes down and for providing that info.

– Noris

[noris]

Hi @Rainer_Huppert,

I am taking a look through the logs at the timestamps you mentioned and I am seeing the following:

4/19 10:12:39 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [HighQuality 64.1x, 24/44 ALAC => 24/48] [6% buf] [PLAYING @ 4:07/4:21] A Lot's Gonna Change - Weyes Blood
04/19 10:12:40 Debug: [prebuffer] sleeping in read -- this isn't good
04/19 10:12:45 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [HighQuality 64.3x, 24/44 ALAC => 24/48] [PLAYING @ 4:13/4:21] A Lot's Gonna Change - Weyes Blood
04/19 10:12:45 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [raatclient] GOT [88] {"samples":5919,"status":"Dropout"}
04/19 10:12:46 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [raatclient] GOT [88] {"samples":24576,"status":"Dropout"}

&

04/19 10:22:16 Debug: [prebuffer] sleeping in read -- this isn't good
04/19 10:22:17 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [HighQuality, 24/44 ALAC => 24/48] [2% buf] [PLAYING @ 2:12/4:40] Andromeda - Weyes Blood
04/19 10:22:21 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [raatclient] GOT [187] {"samples":2252,"status":"Dropout"}
04/19 10:22:23 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [raatclient] GOT [187] {"samples":24576,"status":"Dropout"}

&

04/19 10:38:43 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [HighQuality, 24/44 ALAC => 24/48] [2% buf] [PLAYING @ 1:26/4:45] Something To Believe - Weyes Blood
04/19 10:38:47 Trace: [Rainer's iPad Pro] [raatclient] GOT [14] {"status":"Dropout","samples":12638}

In all of these traces, the buffer is dropping towards zero and not being filled up in time. This issue can either be due to the NAS itself or to the network but as far as I can tell, the entire network is going down at the times you mentioned.

There are also similar traces later on where your Core is not communicating properly with our diagnostics servers, further leading me to believe this is a networking issue somewhere along the line.

You mentioned before that you connected your NAS directly to the Fritzbox, but was the Macbook also connected to the Fritzbox for this test?

The best way to separate the root causes of this issue would be:

1. To verify if this issue occurs on another Core
2. To verify if this issue occurs with another Router
3. To verify if other network locations exhibit the same symptoms

I realize that point 1 may not be possible since you don’t have another Core nearby, but for point 2, would it be possible to order an affordable consumer-grade router (such as Netgear/TP-Link/Linksys) from Amazon to see if the behavior is the same?

For point #3 it might be useful to try to connect a USB drive containing a small set of files to your router, add it as a shared folder to Roon and verify if the same issue occurs since you don’t have another PC. Can you give this a try and let me know if the behavior is the same?

I really do want to solve this issue, but without these follow-up tests it will be hard to diagnose where exactly the issues are. As I mentioned previously, we have many Roon users with similar setups to yours that are not experiencing issues, we just need to figure out where where the bottleneck is in your system.

Thanks,
Noris