Unable to Access Roon's ARC Outside Home Wifi (ref#71DELT)

[Evan_Grip]

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Network Setup

My only router was provided by my ISP

ARC Status

ARC is *Not Ready*

Roon Error Code

“natpmp_autoconfig”: {“status”:“NotFound”}, “upnp_autoconfig”: {“status”:“NotFound”} }

Have you successfully located and enabled the UPnP or NAT-PMP settings in your router's web UI?

I've turned UPnP/ NAT-PMP on and ARC won't connect

Select the Diagnostic Keyword or Text String

Something else

I think I am beginning to better understand how Roon works as a whole and with ARC, but I would like to know if a problem I'm having is expected behavior or if there is something I can do to fix it.

Quick summary: ARC will tell me "your Roon server isn't configured for access outside of your network." What this means for me is that I can only use ARC if my laptop is at home and connected to my home wifi. There are tons of others who have posted about this general issue, but I haven't found anything that exactly fits this scenario or comes close to a solution yet. Is there a way to have a laptop as a Roon server and access ARC while that laptop is away from its home wifi?

Here is my specific scenario:

I have my laptop set up as my Roon server. When the laptop is connected to my home wifi, everything works perfectly fine with ARC. I can connect to the app on my phone via my home wifi, or by using cellular data when away from home, as long as my laptop is left on, of course.

However, whenever my laptop is connected to another wifi network, ARC will not connect. When I am dog-sitting at another house, for example, I have no issues accessing my full Roon library on my laptop, as expected, but I can never connect to ARC unless my laptop is at home and connected to my home wifi. This seems strange to me, since when I set up the laptop as my server, I wasn't even on my home wifi; I was at someone else's house. But ARC did not work then, and will not work no matter what unless my laptop is at home on that wifi.

When I am at home, I have tried playing around with uPnP (enabled) and port forwarding (made some rules), per the help article. None of that has worked, and I'm pretty sure I've done it correctly. Unfortunately, with Roon not being designed for the general public, that article is near complete gibberish to anyone who doesn't have extensive knowledge in the relevant field (hence all the thumbs down), and most of the troubleshooting posts related to it are unreadable to most anyone lacking a college degree in computer networking.

Of course, troubleshooting is nearly impossible anyways, since I can only do any network configuration while on my home wifi, since I need to access my router settings, and I won't know if anything I did even worked until I'm at someone else's house with my laptop trying to connect to ARC on my phone.

I would sincerely appreciate any help. I love how Roon integrates personal libraries and streaming so fluidly, but I understand that that means remote access is a lot more complex than a simple streaming app. Or is what I'm trying to do just not possible and I will need a server that stays at home?

[Menzies]

@Evan_Grip

However, whenever my laptop is connected to another wifi network, ARC will not connect.

This is likely to be down to the other wifi networks router not having UPnP enabled, or can’t due to CG-Nat or no physical port forwarding rule set

[Jim_F]

Your Roon server, whatever it is, has to be connected to a router, wherever it is, that has port forwarding to allow your Roon server to send and receive information from your phone or tablet that is running the Roon ARC app, over the internet. For instance, this could be your “at home” router and then another one at a “vacation home,” etc.

Also, to be able to connect using a second router at a different location, you would need to set it up on your phone or tablet each time you want to switch to the second location.

EDIT: I would purchase one of the new $500 Roon Nucleus One and make that your main Roon server at home, always on and always available. Then, if you want to use Roon on your laptop away from home, it’s a simple matter to unauthorize the Nucleus and authorize the laptop.

[Menzies]

Ideally you would benefit having a dedicated machine running Roon, running all the time or as and when you needed, connected via ethernet to your home network, and left at home. Then configure Arc to work on your smartphone.

[Evan_Grip]

Thank you so much for the reply! That is a simple answer, and just what I was looking for. I can work with that from here.

[Evan_Grip]

Thank you for the reply! That’s also quite simple. My family shares a small cottage, so I will be sure to set up port forwarding there. I can accept doing multiple setups if I’m traveling back and forth; I understand that.