· After a reinstall of ROCK on my NUC I can't play radio stations anymore. The web interface shows missing codecs. I installed ffmpeg to ROCK (I tried both the amd and x86 versions) but even after reboot, the codec is still missing. I tried to set ffmpeg to executable, but smb won't let me. Also I cannot add a local folder, only network shares. A problem with the file system?
Tell us about your home network
· tried with and without Tailscale. Home wifi. NUC connected to router directly.
Thanks for reaching out. For the codec issue, please follow the steps in this guide exactly - it covers the correct ffmpeg version and where to place it:
If SMB access is giving you trouble, this guide should help:
Could you also let us know which ffmpeg file you downloaded and exactly where you placed it on the ROCK share? That will help us confirm whether the placement is correct.
I don’t think that is the problem. I did follow the steps in the first link exactly in the first place, downloading the directly linked tar.xz file (“for example, grab…”) as well as the ‘git-i686-static’ one and decompressing one and the other. (Only detail: opposing to the advice, it was only compressed once, there was nothing to “decompress twice” as it states. Inside the decompressed folder was 1 folder, inside that the file ffmpeg, which is executable. I copied that file to smb://rock.local/data/Codecs/ and I can see the file there, size 79.9MB.
Also, access over the network works fine. I can access the data folder and my Music folder inside it. I can play files from it on my computer. Also the Codecs folder is reachable. What I cannot do is add the Music folder to the ROCK system for scanning. The file browser is empty. I can add a network share (which I tried, adding smb://rock.local and also localhost but that doesn’t work and clearly is not the idea)
So the 2nd link provided is a step behind. It handles the problem of accesing the guest share.
Thanks for the detailed follow-up - the ffmpeg file looks correct in terms of size and location, so that part should be fine. Please reboot ROCK once via the web interface if you haven’t already, as ffmpeg only gets picked up after a restart.
Regarding the music folder - you don’t need to add it through the file browser at all. ROCK automatically monitors one specific path for local music: \\ROCK\Data\Storage\InternalStorage. Simply copy your music files into that folder over the network and Roon will scan them automatically.
If your music is on a separate NAS or external drive rather than stored directly on the ROCK machine, you would add it as a network share in Roon under Settings → Storage → Add network share, pointing to the SMB path of that device - not to ROCK itself.
Please reboot ROCK once via the web interface, then try playing a radio station and let us know if it works.
Still no change. I rebooted several times and I even did a reinstall through the web interface. The ffmpeg file is there but the web interface still shows missing codec and radio - being a mp3 stream - won’t play back. Any other ideas?
Also, I moved all my music files (not many) to InternalStorage (which I created, it didn’t exist). But still the “Folder” source in Roon says, there are no folders being monitored.
There seems to be a massive problem of the two linux machines talking to each other. I have no idea why. Putting files from my desktop to the rock machine in the obvious simple way through the network access of the file manager (gnome/nautilus) does NOT work correctly. Others have found out, but the information is hidden in long disussions. This seems to be a networking issue on one of the machines. I have never encountered similar problems accessing other network shares from my laptop, even including remote access through vpn. But probably this is also the reason, rock cannot “read” the music files (which are there, I can see them from other locations, i.e. from my ipad.) Next step: I will copy my music through my ipad and check, if this works.
BTW: if I try to mount my rock network share to my linux desktop, I must provide a root password for rock. empty or ‘guest’ does not work. That is kind of peculiar. Is there a way to mount the share anyway? I tried this:
Thanks for the extra detail. The missing codec side looks like it has a path forward now, but the folder monitoring and share mounting behavior still point to a networking issue between the two Linux machines.
Can you confirm that you installed an additional drive inside the ROCK? Music cannot be stored on the OS NVME, drive, since that is reserved for operating system duties. For the share mount, does the same issue happen if you use the IP address instead of the .local address? You can also try SMB 2/3 and see whether that works.
Now that’s interesting… No, I don’t have an extra drive. Never had. But it worked perfectly for 2 years until I reinstalled ROCK (I tried installing Nextcloud and Roon Server on 1 machine in the meantime, but gave up and came back to ROCK. Same machine, same network surroundings, same install procedure.) I could just browse the file system UNDER /data/ and choose the folders to watch.
Would it work to partition the disk in 2? Does the installer allow for that?
You then need to select the ffmpeg file and decompress that (Using “Extract to” in this WinZip example). That then gives you the ffmpeg-git-amd64-static folder containing the decompressed ffmpeg file:
It sounds as though you have created a false InternalStorage folder on the m.2 SSD used for holding RoonOS and Roon. You CANNOT store music files on this SSD. You must add a 2.5" SATA drive inside the NUC (assuming that it is a NUC model that will accommodate it); format it using the Web Administration Interface and then copy your music files over to this drive.
I can’t unzip the file ffmpeg in Linux. Does not seem to be a zip or a tar format. Both command line commands complain. The GUI file manager doesn’t recognize it as compressed either. Does anyone know the necessary command?
(Just for the record: the codec problem is solved for me. I downloaded the ready-to-use ffmpeg file from someone helpful. But I think it would be useful to find the necessary command for non-windows users. The networking issue is not really solved yet, see above.)
Alright, that seems to be the reason, then. Is there any way to explain, that it DID work over years? The machine does NOT (and never had) a 2nd drive. I can’t really understand, what’s going on…
If anyone knows, how I can get my fake 2nd drive up and running again, that would be lovely. Else we can close this issue.
Your opening post says that you had reinstalled ROCK - and that would explain it. While I wrote that you CANNOT store music files on the m.2 SSD, it would be better to say “should not”.
a) because a reinstall of ROCK will first erase data on the SSD
b) because you need to add the music folder as a network share of the ROCK/NUC itself to set up the watched folder - a rather inelegant kludge.
Based on the discussion, it sounds like your previous setup worked because music was stored in a non-standard location on the ROCK’s OS drive - which is not officially supported and gets wiped on reinstall.
Given that your machine doesn’t have a second internal drive, the cleanest long-term solution would be to switch from ROCK to a standard Linux install with Roon Server in Docker. This gives you full control over the filesystem, proper support for network shares, and no restrictions on where music can be stored. The setup is straightforward and you’ll avoid these limitations entirely. And you will be able to deploy Nextcloud as well.
