Tracks ending prematurely

Support
1

I want to say once, maybe twice a day, a track will abruptly end, and then another track by the same artist (not sure about album) starts immediately after (no gap).

My personal library is all ALAC files, stored on a RAID attached to a Mac Pro (which is also the Roon server). I also have Tidal configured.

I’m reasonably certain I don’t have bad files. I’m 100% certain I don’t have that many bad files. My experience with Tidal over Sonos has been that it either plays everything, or it plays nothing. I haven’t noticed single tracks with issues.

What can I do to diagnose this?

2

Hi Steve,

Are you using Radio when this happens? ie Just playing random music.

The first thing I would check is the song gapless? Listen to the song that seemed to get cut off and then the next song on the album.

Other than that, I don’t know.

Cheers, Greg

3

I usually use Radio, so almost certainly that’s the case here.

When I say “prematurely”, I don’t mean seconds, like the cross-fade or gap interval. It plays for a minute or so, then suddenly begins another track.

Is there any logging that goes on at the server we can look at?

Steve

4

Hi Steve,

Yes Roon and Roon Server keep logs in their home directory. Let’s flag @Support to drop in and investigate.

5

I’ve been seeing this too since the new version, @Steve_Kalkwarf - I usually get a small dropout before it happens, and then the next track plays (sometimes the previous track resumes, but often it just moves to the next track).

I’m not using Radio, though - I’m playing an album, and if I go back to the same track, it usually plays fine, so the files aren’t damaged.

ALAC files as well, although my server is running on the Synology.

Edit: I just caught it doing this again, and the Roon UI said “a file is loading slowly”. So, even though the files are entirely local to the Synology, it thinks they’re loading slowly. I checked the drive pack, and all the drives are fine…and it’s quite fast, so I don’t know what it’s complaining about, but there it is anyway… @Support, that make any sense?

6

@Steve_Kalkwarf ----- Thanks for the feedback. Sorry to hear that you are experiencing this issue. This feels as though you maybe experiencing dropouts during playback which would cause roon to skip from track to track. Dropouts can occur for a variety of reasons as you can see here.

Are you noticing any other strange behavior besides what you have reported?

Are you able to provide some more detail in regard to the gear you are working with and how everything is connected/communicating with each other?

-Eric

7

@David_Nanian ----- Thank you for chiming in and providing further feedback on the issue at hand. As I have asked Steve, can you please give me some insight on the gear you are using and how everything is connected/communicating with each other. This information would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

-Eric

8

My server is a Mac Pro, wired over gigabit Ethernet. It’s running Roon (not Roon server). The music is stored on a RAID, attached by Thunderbolt. Roughly 32k tracks, all ALAC.

My two endpoints are Hifiberry-Digi+ attached to Pi 3 hardware, also connected over Ethernet. One endpoint is connected to a Parasound Halo Integrated, and the other zone is connected to a Schiit Bifrost. Prior to installing Roon, I used Sonos equipment. Aside from the periodic Tidal failure, I have no problems with the Sonos gear playing music from the same source, to the same DAC. (obviously, the transport is Sonos in that case)

The network itself is in good health (I write Mac and iOS software for a living that’s network dependent) and the server is so lightly loaded, it barely knows it’s on. :slight_smile:

9

Sorry, I figured you had my information from before.

I’ve got a Synology 2415+ with 6GB of memory (the max). My files are stored local to the NAS in a folder structure that is identical to what iTunes does (it’s rsync’ed from an iTunes collection’s music folder). There’s a fast USB3 SSD that holds the Roon database.

My endpoints are an Auralic Aries, a few HiFiBerry DAC+ units, and a bunch of AirPlay speakers (almost all B&O). I’m primarily playing through the Aries and the DAC+s.

Like @Steve_Kalkwarf, I’m a Mac developer and am quite accomplished at network and server setup. Nearly everything involved here is wired with Gigabit Ethernet and is in good condition. All switches are of recent vintage. Roon says I have 82928 tracks, but I think that’s a combination of Tidal and local: I think my local library is about 65K tracks, nearly all ALAC.

The NAS is generally very lightly loaded even with Roon Server/Appliance running: right now, with one active endpoint, after restarting after the previous craziness, it’s taking about 2% CPU and 1GB of memory.

EDIT: one thing I should have said. Once I restarted the server and it wasn’t going crazy any more, things worked fine.