Unable to make Roon work on QNAP HS-453DX 8GB

DPV · January 30, 2020, 4:48pm

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

QNAP NAS HS-453DX 8GB / Celeron J4105 @1.5 (2.3) / Roon 1.7 (build 511) stable
QPKG: 2019-06-09 (QNAP AppCenter) Proces ID: 7229

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)

Wired. Via switch to Chromecast Ultra

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

Wired Chromecast Ultra via HDMI to Pioneer SC-LX58. (direct HDMI connection is available, but chromecast is used for now)

Description Of Issue

Recap: QNAP HS-453DX 8 GB RAM (2x4) / two 4 TB spinning disk in a RAID config / two SSD 1 TB no RAID. Storagepool 3 is one of the SSD’s, there is only one volume witch is called Roon. This is where the RoonServer shared foder is. (followed setup guide)

Only a few other programs are running, switched most of them off to see if that helped. My CPU is working during the initial library scan (upto 90%), but when analysing the tracks it uses approx 8%. So no overload there. The Celeron performance should be enough for what I’m asking of the NAS.

Initial setup is no problem. The server starts scanning my music, I see an overview and everything is working like a charm. No Tidal yet, because I wanted to isolate the problem. So just a library on one of the other disks. (I tried spinning, the other SSD and the same SSD) At this moment the folder is located on the spinning disks, with RAID1.

After a few hours or days, depending on how busy I was, several problems occurred. Tidal is giving me a headache, so I skipped that first. Problems keep coming. One of the first problems was the disappearence of the overview page and lost of Tidal connection. Found no solution.

At this moment After several clean installs and reboots, there is the following situation. Yesterday I installed everything again from the beginning. Library scan succecfull, then a back-up was made also succesfully. Happy camper. Library shuffle worked, for the hours it played. Roon skipped a few songs, but I did not look into that yet. Went to bed and shut down the NAS, for the next check.

This morning one of the problems occurred again. I have no connection with my library, Roon asks me to add music to start listening and there are no audio devices showing. The settings/audio page is totally empty. When I go to settings/storage the library folder is still selected and when I try to add this folder it says its allready added. I use an iPad and an Windows 10 PC for remote control, one at a time.

No music shows in Roon at all. Storage location lost. Unusable.

I tried to be as specific as possible, but if anybody needs more info just ask. This takes weeks allready and it may be just a setup/setting mistake, but I’m out of ideas.

Please help.
(I was unable to include .log files)

Best regards,

Dimitri

dylan · January 30, 2020, 5:23pm

Hi @DPV,

How many tracks total do you have in your music library?

Do you have any type of firewall or antivirus software running on the NAS?

Would you kindly use the directions found here and send us over a set of logs using a shared Dropbox link?

Thanks!

DPV · January 30, 2020, 5:42pm

Thank you for your quick reply.

Just above 18000 tracks and no firewall and/or anti virus running. I’ll send you the logs asap when I’m back behind the PC.

That’s now.

Best regards,

Dimitri

DPV · January 30, 2020, 10:35am

Hi there,

this is a old topic, but my problem is exactly with this NAS. I can not make it work.

Recap: QNAP HS-453DX 8 GB RAM (2x4) / two 4 TB spinning disk in a RAID config / two SSD 1 TB no RAID. Storagepool 3 is one of the SSD’s, there is only one volume wich is called Roon. This is where the RoonServer shared foder is.

Only a few other programs are running, switched them off to see if that helped. My CPU is working during the initial library scan, but when analysing the tracks it uses approx 8%. So no overload there.

Initial setup is no problem. The server starts scanning my music, I see an overview and everything is working like a charm. No Tidal yet, because I wanted to isolate the problem. So just a library on one of the other disks. (I tried spinning, the other SSD and the same SSD)

After a few hours or days, depending on how busy I was, several problems occurred. Tidal is giving me a headache, so I skipped that first. Problems keep coming. One of the first problems was the disappearence of the overview page and lost of Tidal connection. Found no solution.

At this moment After several clean installs and reboots, there is the following situation. Yesterday I installed everything again from the beginning. Library scan succecfull, then a back-up was made also succesfully. Happy camper. Library shuffle worked, for the hours it played. Roon skipped a few songs, but I did not look into that yet. Went to bed and shut down the NAS, for the next check.

This morning one of the problems occurred again. I have no connection with my library, Roon asks me to add music to start listening and there are no audio devices showing. The settings/audio page is totally empty. When I go to settings/storage the library folder is still selected and when I try to add this folder it says its allready added.

No music shows in Roon at all.

I tried to be as specific as possible, but if anybody needs more info just ask. This takes weeks allready and it may be just a setup/setting mistake, but I’m out of ideas.

Please help.

Best regards,

Dimitri

crieke · January 31, 2020, 11:10am

Hi Dimitri,
that is a strange behaviour. I have checked your logs and noticed an entry about corrupted database. This is weird at such an early stage (and in general it should not happen at all).
I also looked at your screenshots. I noticed, you seem to have snapshots enabled (there is a folder called @Recently-Snapshot in you Roon Server shared folder. I do not know, if this might be the cause, but it is something that differs from my setup. If the qnap locks the files while doing its snapshots and Roon is trying to write something to the database, it might result in a corrupted database (just a theory here).

dylan · January 31, 2020, 12:43pm

Hi @DPV,

I spoke with our team today regarding their evaluation of the logs from your install. Sometimes issues like the one you saw can be spurious, but unfortunately in this case they are seeing signs of low level corruption in your database.

This type of error is extremely rare for us and not one that we see often. Our database infrastructure is designed specifically to prevent this type of corruption, and we don’t take this class of issue lightly.

You mentioned above that this has happened before and is resolved with a clean install and then it will happen again, correct? Seeing this type of behavior happen so quickly and frequently in definitely a rare occurrence and, in the past, we’ve found that it’s typically caused by failing hardware.

My advice is to try running Roon on a different machine if you have one that is capable of being a Roon Core, and meanwhile run some tests on the QNAP to check for any issues with the RAM or drives. If you have any questions about this please do let us know!

DPV · January 31, 2020, 12:56pm

Roger.

Can do a SSD check for both of the disks. (They are luckily still almost empty) For the RAM check I might need some help, but will check this also when I’m back home.

I won’t give up… Yet…

dylan · January 31, 2020, 3:00pm

Thanks, @DPV. Definitely let us know how the checks go and if you have any questions please feel free to reach out!

DPV · February 2, 2020, 8:14pm

@dylan Okay, this is what I’ve done so far.

Did a compleet test of the two HDD’s and the two SSD’s. No faults found. They are aprox three and two months old, so brand new. All drives are WD, the RAM is Adata. I also did a big overhaul on my library. Most of the folders are organized like “artist\album\songs”. Folder\sub folder\files.

The two SSD’s are fysically swapped and erased. Also the two RAM-modules are swapped, just to be sure, everything was installed correctly. The Ram was build in, the disks weren’t.

What I need is:

advise for a RAM-test if needed (without data loss).
answer on the install questions the QNAP asks me (so we’re on the same page)
maybe a look at my new log files (I just installed everything on the HDD for a test run)

Please talk me through your optimal setup.

When I create a new storage pool on one of the SSD’s to start with there are a few options, does it matter what I choose?

RAID: two disks, when I choose one (no RAID), the other one can be used for ‘cache acceleration’. This might be useful to speed up the NAS for streaming. (my library is on the HDD’s with RAID1)
Enable SSD Over-provisioning. Again a performance boost, allmost double the IOPS speed bij 20%. This gives me a 737GB of space available on a 922GB drive.
Created a Storage Pool on one of the SDD and now the volume. Static, Thick or Thin? (I used Thick and Thin both and had problems with both I think.) Static has no ‘SnapShot’-feature, referring to @crieke might be an option.
The option is available to choose the bytes per inode. Standard is 32K, did not see the use for it now.
When I’m correct, you ask me to create a Folder ‘RoonServer’ as a location for the database and to install the Roon-app on one of the SSD’s. (may be the same)

For now everything is running on the spinning disks. Keep you posted with the progress (and set backs…)

Dimitri

crieke · February 3, 2020, 2:08am

Hi Dimitri,

Regarding the Ram test you could try the QNAP Diagnostic App:
(The memory test can be used, without data loss).
https://appcenter.qnap.com/eng/qpkg/overview/diagnosticApp

I have not heard of any issues from other users regarding these settings.
The snapshot feature was just a quick guess, but I actually do not really believe this causes the issue.

Regarding the inode setting, I’d recommend to keep the default value, unless you really know what you are doing and why you are doing it.

The database location can be on any shared folder, as long as it is selected in the QNAP Roon Server web user interface.

DPV · February 3, 2020, 6:23am

@crieke

Thank you for the reply. The page you referring to is the same I found after using Google, but is not working. There is no download link and the app is also not in the QNAP store anymore. The page is over 2 years old. Maybe it’s been replaced by the help desk-app? But that hasn’t got the RAM rest option, just a disk stress test.

That’s why I needed the help.

crieke · February 3, 2020, 9:10am

You are right.
If QNAP has pulled the Memtest from the App Center, I can only think of a second way to do a memory test with Memtest86, which is a little bit more complex, but it also seems to be more accurate. (I have to admit, I have not tried it myself yet, because I had no issues on my devices so far).
There is a video on Youtube, how to do it on a QNAP.

DPV · February 4, 2020, 9:25am

@crieke @dylan @noris

Haven’t done this yet. What I’ve done yesterday, was a setup with Roon app on HDD, RoonServer folder (and database) on SSD. Worked like a charm, even so good I got TIDAL connected. Tonight 01.15 AM all was okay, this morning 0900AM the problems stated again.

A few things:

TIDAL was connected, but nothing was showing on the TIDAL page, only the page template and a loading symbol.
Overview page was stuck at a loading screen as well.
Logged out of TIDAL and the overview page was back to normal and my own music was playing.
Stopped the Roon server on the NAS to delete the TIDAL cache folder and the Roon App disappeared as well from the menu. The app never returned to the home screen after a restart. Via AppCenter acces to the Roon app was still available. This happend every time after a server(core) shut down. Every tme the core was stopped on the NAS, it did not come back as before, if it came back at all.
When I started the program Roon on my PC, there was no connection possible. It showed only ‘initialyzing’.The core on the NAS showed running. Nothing more happend.
Downloaded the log files and did a re-install via the icon. Roon connected to the core but my whole library was gone, while all the settings and storage location where showing the same as before and correct.
Removed Roon core from the NAS. Deleted the folders and volumes and started over in a different config again.
cache acceleration was running on the HDD.
new setup will be with to different volumes on the HDD, to keep the data separated from the system and the apps.

I’m losing fun. Got better things to do. The promises on the QNAP and Roon product pages are beautifull, but it doesn’t look to be more than promises.

I hope you find a solution. I’m running out of ideas.

Best regards,

Dimitri

DPV · February 7, 2020, 11:11am

@crieke @dylan

Hi guys,

Did some moving around with my setup, but skipped the RAM-test for now. Memtest86 was to much hassle and I was not convinced we where going in the right direction. The whole NAS was performing well.

What I did was resizing the volumes on the HDD’s in RAID1. Spreading the setup over multiple volumes, to give everything a more obvious structure (for myself at least). I made screenshots, see below.

Everything is working for a few days allready and working fairly good. The Roon shortcut is sticking around on the startscreen, that disappeared before after every restart. The only strange thing for now is the audio analyzing function. It finished this morning, but started all over after the last restart. I read about this issue in the forum and Roon shouldn’t scan a song twice, but it doesn’t look that way. (see screenshot below as well, the counter is now at 93/16198)

Next step is to start TIDAL (I made a back-up), if this works I’m back in business. If this fails, I’ll probably just sit out my subscription. Fingers crossed and if you need anything else from my side, please let me know.

Best regards,

Dimitri

DPV · February 7, 2020, 11:21am

Forget what I just said. Overview page is working, but no artist page loading and when playing Bonamassa for example, the last played artist, Springsteen is still showing. Roon is a mess for now.

Haven’t even tried to setup TIDAL .

Edit: Display on chromecast is working. It is Roon on the PC wich gives no album art any more and also when I click on an artist, the loading page keeps loading with now visable extra load on the CPU.

crieke · February 7, 2020, 12:42pm

Hi Dimitri,
Sorry to hear that.
Could you provide the new logs? I’d like to check if the same error is back in the logs again.
Does this only happen on the PC right now? (Are there other clients that do work?)

Kind regards
Chris

dylan · February 10, 2020, 9:32pm

Hi @DPV,

Christopher sent me the logs that you shared with him so I could review with the team. In these logs once again we are seeing signs of corruption. As we mentioned previously, this type of corruption is typically caused by hardware issues, and when I met with the QA team they echoed this — They recommended running tests to see if there were any hardware issues with any of the components on the drive.

You have our apologies here, Dimitri. I wish we had better news for you, but unfortunately, it looks like there is a hardware issue here that is continuing to cause this issue to occur. If you have any other ideas about why your machine may be corrupting the Roon install I’d be happy to present it to the team, but we definitely recommend running the memory test and checking other aspects of the hardware for potential issues.

-Dylan

DPV · February 12, 2020, 7:30pm

Hi @dylan ,

This is what I’ve tested from my side. No faults found, no clou left.
The HDD stress test from QNAP ran for over 25 hours, but produced no faults. (but also no report)
Maybe there’s something in the overall QNAP log files I included the latest Roon logs as well.

What happens is this:

fresh install, including TIDAL. Everything working. For now, all I can think of as a common fact, is the restart of the Roon core. After a back-up or a manual restart, there is always something not working. TIDAL, or more annoying, loss of storage location. In the latter, my storage location is lost and my audio devices as well. When I go to settings/storage the folder is still there, rescan doesn’t do anything and adding the same folder again is not accepted… The settings/audio tab is totally empty.

I tried different setups, as you can read in earlier posts.

Maybe there is something in the logs or results, but I’m out of ideas. Maybe QNAP has some? I’ll turn to them, but, as allready said, everything else works fine.

The advertisement for the QNAP-Roon combi looks for now, with this NAS, very misleading. Kodi and movie streaming works fine, PLEX as well (need some tweaking, but okay). I deleted allmost everything to get Roon working, but no succes.

Best regards,

Dimitri

dylan · February 13, 2020, 2:21pm

Hi @DPV,

Do you have another machine that you could temporarily run as your Core machine? While it definitely looks like something specific to this QNAP is causing corruption, running this test will help us verify that there are not other environmental factors involved (network, media, etc.).