Okay, I am completely confused. Although I am not smart about this stuff, I do like to listen to music and I have a discerning ear. The whole point of having so much equipment is to listen to music, not to screw around with the technology. So when something works, I generally don’t keep the configuration in the forefront of my mind because it works; what do I care how it works? But today, nothing worked. Only the Oppo HA-1, which is my daily ordinary machine worked. But the Dark Voice didn’t work nor did the iFi iCan. So I looked at the Zone settings. Now I still don’t understand Zones, though I do appreciate the efforts of my fellows here to explain it to me. I use zones, such as with the remote connection to my laptop, which I use in the bedroom. But I don’t know why a Zone should have multiple devices grouped together. Nor do I know how to ungroup them and choose each device manually. I don’t know what “system output” is or what it refers to… Thanks to andybob above, but I don’t understand what “the output of a Queue” means. Nor what you use when “using a control.” z
So the problem Right now: I have a couple of options in DAC/Amp combos attached to my iMac. I have the Oppo HA-1, which is also connected to powered speakers. I also have a DARK VOICE amp/Aune X1S combination and and iFi Micro SE iCAN/SMSL M8. All of these have worked with the current configuration before no problem. I just go to the System Preferences/Sound and choose which DAC I want to use, and plug my headphones into the corresponding amp. But today, only the Oppo worked. I went to look at my Zones. The three options (Oppo HA-1, Dark Voice/Aune, and iFi-iCan/SMSL M8) are grouped together with System Output. I went to device setup and noted that my devices had nothing set in the minimum bit rate and Hz settings, so I changed them. Now I get sound from the devices, but it is distorted. What’s going on? And why can’t I ungroup them?
Also, there is an error message when I look at the Zone group settings. It’s a red exclamation point surrounded by a red circle and it says “Zone not available”. I mean WTF??? No options. Nothing to change or tweak to make it available. No idea what being “available” entails, particularly since sound is being produced. Please help and talk to me like the 4th grader that my mind thinks I am in this arena. Thanks.
@Stephen_McLeod, I Suggest you start reading the knowledge base. It covers all of your questions.
To me it sounds like you have a convolution, confusion, and miss-understanding of how everything works, Is difficult to help when you do not understand the system logic.
Ill give it a shoot… Lets start with one issue at the time.
Lets un-group them first… Hold down the right click till you get the group zone option. Once in the group, un-check your devices and they will un-group.
We’ll work through it slowly Stephen and get you on track. Ungrouping the Zones as Fernando has indicated is a start.
Zone just means “output”. Each device should have its own Zone, but you can group them together if you want them to play the same music (called a Queue).
The “system output” Zone refers to the Core operating system output. In Windows this is the default playback device accessed by right clicking on the volume speaker icon. Roon has a direct Zone for each device connected to the Core but the “system output” Zone sends sound to whatever device is currently selected as the default playback device in Windows. Similarly for Mac.
So what happens is, some people are good at history but terrible at math, and they go to law school. And some people are better at shop than home ec. and so on. I read the knowledge base and it makes sense at the time, but it doesn’t really stick. I just figure out the protocol I need and execute it every time. The things I change are the librarian type details so I’ll have my music appear in the interface exactly in the order I want it and with the information I want it to show. I get a Zone issue once in a while and I can usually figure it out because I set it up once or when I added a remote by rote. This threw me though, “Zone not available.” This on the monitor of my core device (iMac). I mean, now I can’t even find the DACs that I already set up for use with the Core.
Yes, thank G_d,. andybob! So things kept disappearing for the last couple of days and your message came. But I thought I’d try one other thing: just uninstall and reinstall Roon. Easy, right? Well now I don’t have anything. The copy I downloaded from the site won’t open! Now I don’t have anything - no nothing. Just iTunes.
Hi @Stephen_McLeod ---- I have went ahead and moved your posts over to the support section of community so we can address your issue directly.
Moving forward, to help me evaluate what may have happened here, may I kindly ask you to please provide the following information:
When you reinstalled the application, can you give me the steps (procedurally speaking) that you used. I understanding that I am jogging your memory a bit but the clearer picture I have of what was done the easier it will be to address what may have happened.
When you say that the copy you downloaded from the site won’t open, what do you mean? Does the app start to launch and then it just stops? Are you present with any error messages generated by the OS?
This may be the most import part of this, do you have backups made of your database?
Looking forward to getting this figured out for you!
-Eric
Eric thanks. One at a time. First, all my hardware info is in the Original post to this thread (iMac 27 inch, lots of DACs and Amps to choose from attached) But there will be one change: I recently installed, and am currently running OS 10,2,4. (Sierra). In fact, although I was having intermittent issues before I installed Sierra, the whole Roon application did not crash & disappear before that.
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. (First question is a multipart answer)
You: <<1) When you reinstalled the application, can you give me the steps (procedurally speaking) that you used. I understanding that I am jogging your memory a bit but the clearer picture I have of what was done the easier it will be to address what may have happened.>>
A. I uninstalled Roon from my iMac using the app, CleanMyMac.
B. I went to the Roon website and chose MORE…/DOWNLOAD & downloaded the DMV files from that url
C. I installed the program by dragging the icon into the applications folder.
D I tried to open Roon - nothing happened.
E. I repeated the process using a different series of links to the download. Same result.
You: <<2) When you say that the copy you downloaded from the site won’t open, what do you mean? Does the app start to launch and then it just stops? Are you present with any error messages generated by the OS?>>
Yes. The app starts to launch. I get a warning that this is an app I downloaded from the Internet and am I sure I want to open it. YES. Then the Roon icon bounces once and that’s that. No error messages
You: <<3) This may be the most import part of this, do you have backups made of your database?>>
I use TIME MACHINE several times per day, so there are complete backups of my whole computer. The thing is, I just installed the Sierra OS on my iMac. The relevant backups will be in the old OS (El Capitan) because this happened right after I installed Sierra - I don’t think this is a Sierra issue though because everything else about the OS works will all my other apps and programs and is basically invisible to me. BUT there is a folder under HARD DRIVE/Users/smcleod/music called “Roon” and it contains what appear to be music files, but it is only 113 GB. My music library is much larger than that. Is that file the database of which you speak? I also have the original files that were the source files for the Core Roon library.
Lastly, I see from the information in your post that you making use of Time Machine to handle your Roon backups. Note that because Roon’s database is frequently updated in the background, we strongly recommend against depending on automatic backup programs like Time Machine, Crashplan, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc and others. I would strongly advise following the backup procedure highlighted in our knowledge base.
Hi Eric,
Well that fixed me. Now I just have to go back and do everything over again. But it’s better than not having any music by a long shot. Thanks to you and all for the comments and advice.