Tracks Slow to Load & Playback Randomly Stops on Synology 3615XS+ Roon Core

Support
51

@mike,

Thank you for your note and for continuing to research this, presuming that you have many others using Synology as a core, this is indeed vexing.

First, I will confirm that the system is stable when I move the core to the workstation. (See Diagram I’ve Previously Shared.) In the case of the core being on the workstation, the music files themselves remain on the Synology. In this mode, the system is stable and behaves as expected.

Concerning the conjecture that there is a disk failure occurring on the Synology, I offer the following data points:

  1. All “heath” indicators, tests, and benchmarks for every disk on the Synology perform normally.
  1. I’ve tried deinstalling Roon on Synology, and installing on a different SSD from a different manufacturer (disks always from Synology’s compatibility list) in a different bay in the Synology. No improvement.
  2. I do not believe this is in anyway related to the performance characteristics of the Synology. Even with heavy DSP and different queues playing on all endpoints at once, the Synology is barely working. CPU, memory, IO, all barely register.

Regarding contacting Synology, other than issues with Roon, there is nothing I would have to report. All Synology diagnostics: raw data from each disk, disk swap tests, logs, other diagnostics report normal. Furthermore, all other applications, file accesses and functions on the Synology perform exceptionally well, as expected.

I agree that it seems to be related to the NAS, however, I believe it has something to do with the way Roon is operating on my NAS rather than a hardware problem. The problem manifests itself in several ways. For convenience, I am listing them here along with other empirical observations:

  1. The problem can be clearly demonstrated using only one active endpoint, it is not related to grouping. All of the examples that follow are using only a single, non-grouped endpoint with no other endpoint active and no other work being performed by the NAS.
  2. Symptoms don’t happen 100% of the time, but a high percentage of the time (~>30%). The frequency of the symptoms increases as time increases since the last cold restart of the endpoint and/or Roon server. Peak frequency of occurrence comes after about 30min. of use.
  3. The control UI is often intermittently noticeably sluggish. Selecting ‘Discover’ or ‘Genre’ or ‘Recent’ can take 10+ seconds to respond. Also, just selecting “play” can result in a 10+ second delay prior to music starting. Sometimes when this occurs, the control unit indicates the track is playing but there is no audio, in some cases audio never starts though Roon acts as if it has.
  4. Using the ‘fast scrubbing’ bar results in a long (~10+ sec.) pause before the music picks up again at the new point. Sometimes the use of the scrub bar will cause the music to stop indefinitely.
  5. The system will randomly stop. It seems that these stops are somewhat more frequent when the cursor is in the last few seconds of a song, however, it can happen anywhere. Further, it seems slightly more likely when the next track is not the next track number in an album. For example, when using Roon Radio, Shuffle, or a Playlist containing a list of un-related tracks.
  6. There are times when the endpoint becomes permanently unusable by Roon and requires the end point to be rebooted. When this happens, the end point appears normal in Roon but will not accept any commands – like play. When this occurs, the end point remains fully usable from the BlueSound app.
  7. From the Roon controller, when an endpoint is playing, choosing to play something else can result in a quick message on the controller asking me to choose a zone. It’s as if Roon has lost touch with the end point then quickly regains it.
  8. All of the above happens on both the wired and wireless Bluesound endpoints, however, the frequency of the above is ~2x on the wireless unit versus the wired unit.

I will also add that I’ve been a Roon customer for a long time now running Roon trouble free on this very hardware. I’ve had issues since 1.6, prior versions experienced none of this.

Some thoughts on possible avenues for investigation:

  • Btfrs – all but the entry-level Synology NAS units default to Btfrs as the file system. Has Roon been verified to operate properly on an SSD and NAS that is Btfrs?

  • More debug points in the log file? Is there a debug mode that can be activated for my unit that makes the logs more verbose?

  • Are there Synology system logs that should be evaluated?

  • Are you testing the BlueSound 2nd generation units? (2i) In reviewing items posted by others, the 2i seems fat more problematic. I know that’s away from the NAS theory, however, could there be an issue with the end point causing instability in the core?

@mike, @noris, I appreciate your continued support.

P.S. I will also add that there are many reports/discussions regarding issues with the Bluesound 2i. Here is one I saw today. While there are perhaps many Synology/NAS users, there is also a segment of the group that is experiencing similar issues to mine…to the level that the 2i has something of a ‘reputation.’