Understanding what will happen to NAS users after the .NET 10 based Roon Server (20 April 2026)

[DDPS]

Thank you to the Roon team for announcing this (AND pinning it to the top of the forums…let’s hope they announce in an email newsletter too, for those who don’t frequent the forums…):

Important: Roon Minimum System Requirements Are Changing on April 20, 2026

On April 20, 2026, we’ll release a new version of Roon … Roon Server Roon [GUI] Roon Bridge … that brings performance improvements and significantly reduced memory usage. However, it will not be compatible with a small number of older systems. What minimum system requirements are changing? Starting with this release on April 20th, 2026: Roon on macOS will require macOS 12 (Monterey) or later Roon on Linux will require glibc 2.27 or later and OpenSSL 1.1.1 How can I check I am impact…

Note that this news is only of relevance to people running Roon server on their NAS; folks just using their NAS as a file source can avoid thinking about any of this.

For what it’s worth, this will have an impact on people who are running Roon on NAS on QNAP, which apparently includes only glibc 2.21 and older.

Things are not as clear to me for Asustor users; I have zero expertise with that platform. However, some conversation with others as well as some of my own research offers promising news; apparently ADM 5.x includes glibc 2.39, and ADM 4.1–4.2.5 include glibc 2.27.

For Roon on NAS on Synology, it would appear that folks on DSM 7.2 and 7.3 will be OK, as they ship with glibc 2.36 (and OpenSSL 1.1.1u).

However, DSM 7.0 and 7.1 ship with glibc 2.26, and DSM 6 ships with glibc 2.2.0, which means Roon on NAS most assuredly will not work with DSM 6 through 7.1.

For people on QNAP and anything earlier than Synology DSM 7.2, it appears that Docker will become the supported method. Let’s give a round of support and applause to the Roon team for moving in that direction.

Please remember, to quote @Suedkiez, that I am just a fellow user like you, and I don’t provide anything other informal assistance to people (and only as I am able!) on these fora. @crieke is the official creator and maintainer of the truly elegant Roon on NAS packages, and I would imagine he might be thrilled to see Roon moving to a Docker based solution.

Again, thank you to Roon for the heads up, and let’s all be supportive to show them that we want them to succeed. For them to be this transparent ahead of time is a big deal.

[gTunes]

@DDPS

Again, thank you to Roon for the heads up, and let’s all be supportive to show them that we want them to succeed. For them to be this transparent ahead of time is a big deal.

I agree with this 100%.

@DDPS

@crieke is the official creator and maintainer of the truly elegant Roon on NAS packages, and I would imagine he might be thrilled to see Roon moving to a Docker based solution.

We should all take a moment to thank @Steef_de_Bruijn for sharing his excellent work on containerizing Roon. Many of us have been using his container directly, or our own derivatives, for years. I know this decision to support Docker was made with some urgency but it’s largely possible because we have so many years of evidence that Roon runs really, really well in a container and that’s thanks to @Steef_de_Bruijn.

I hope Roon gives people at least a couple of weeks to cut over to Docker before April 20. If the guidance for impacted NAS users is to stand up a container and restore from a backup, that would mean that people can probably run side by side (stop the package, start the container and vice vera) until they’re confident enough to remove the package.

@DDPS - As always, the community will continue to lok to you for leadership in this area, so we’ll need you to be an early adopter. I know you don’t need any help with this stuff but, if you do, I’m available

[Andrew_Hindle]

100% @gTunes! @Steef_de_Bruijn many thanks indeed.

[Steef_de_Bruijn]

Hi all,

Thanks for the kind words.

It was a pleasure to help us all out to use Roon on docker when I created the first version of this image back in 2017 (!!).

I did not update this image regularly (nor was it strictly necessary) but it is nice to see that so many Roon users did benefit from it.

Back in 2017 I believed that Roonlabs should have provided an image themselves. It is good to see they finally could find the time and focus to do that now.

Please switch to the official image as soon it is out in the wild. Until then, as far as I can see, my latest images fulfills the minimal requirements stated by Roonlabs, so I expect Roon will still run on it after april 20.

Steef

[Geoff_Coupe]

@DDPS

let’s hope they announce in an email newsletter too

The April Newsletter landed in my inbox this morning and contained this:

However, there will be a group who don’t subscribe to the newsletter who may be affected. I believe that there will be an in-app announcement happening shortly as well.

[Kai_Schmalenbach]

Your work was the only reason, why it was even possible for me to test roon! Without it, i surely wouldnt have bought roon back in 2018, nor tested it.

[Wade_Oram]

@Geoff_Coupe

However, there will be a group who don’t subscribe to the newsletter who may be affected.

Also, I was somewhat disappointed to see that this announcement in the newsletter email was the last section. I would have hoped that it would be the first since it is the only point in the newsletter that is of critical importance to, at least some, Roon users.

I can forsee many who do get the email failing to read to the end and thus missing this announcement.

Is the improvement in the submission and additional selection choices of headphone profiles in OPRA or the availability of free Roon subscriptions when purchasing some ARCAM devices really more important than this?

@Geoff_Coupe

I believe that there will be an in-app announcement happening shortly as well.

At least this should get noticed. And, at the end of the day, it is probably the only way that the message can be guaranteed to reach all Roon users as there are likely users who don’t frequent the forum as well.

[Geoff_Coupe]

@Wade_Oram

there are likely users who don’t frequent the forum as well.

There are definitely users who have never visited the forum at all.

[maddib]

It’s all about proper communication to their own (pot.) customers. Miss it and you will likely loose more customers than gaining new ones

[David_Broughton]

I hope that Roon admin will send out a notification clearly explaining how to run Docker on my QNAP NAS, as I’m not an IT person.

[DDPS]

There are folks working behind the scenes to make it as simple as possible.

[dennis_mclaughlin]

I run an Asustor Nas but only link my music library to Roon.

I have ROCK running on an Intel Nuc.

Never got round to finding out how Docker etc works, mabye someone will enlighten us poor souls!.

[Moonshiner (Thomas)]

If you run Roon on ROCK you won’t be impacted with the new update. There should be no issues accessing music library on a NAS with outdated glibc library

[Steve_Wilcox]

I have the Roon server on my Innuos Zen Mini iii. Does anyone know if this will be effected?

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

Upcoming Roon Minimum System Requirements

Innuos runs linux, so Linux rules are applicable to them as well. I would encourage to reach out to Innuos directly and get an answer from them.

Note that Innuos distribute Roon Server by themselves in a manner that may be unsupported by Roon Labs:

About the Innuos category

Discussion for Innuos’ products resides in this category. Note, that while many Innuos products have the option to run as a Roon Audio Endpoint or a Roon Server, there are some caveats that you should consider: As an audio endpoint, these products are not Roon Ready or Roon Tested. We do not have any of these devices in-house and are unable to provide support for them. As a Roon Server these products do not meet our minimum requirements, which means that you may encounter performance prob…

[dennis_mclaughlin]

I thought so but I’m glad I’m not affected.

I tried to install Roon on my Asustor Lockerstor but it wasn’t playing …

Let’s hope this new update goes well.

[Andrea_Riela]

you can use the app “Container Station” directly, or install portainer on it, then use portainer to install the containers. If you have problems, just ping me. Cheers.

[Andrea_Riela]

In the meantime, I’ve opened a case with QNAP, to see if they can introduce a new version of glibc in the next updates. I don’t really believe it, but who knows

The answer (translated):

Dear Andrea,
Please note that glibc is a fundamental system library, closely tied to the operating system version. We do not recommend performing a manual update, as it may cause instability or compatibility issues (some QNAP applications may not function properly).
We recommend checking your device’s current operating system version (e.g., QTS or QuTS hero) to see if an official update includes a newer version of glibc.
If the current version does not meet your needs, we can submit a feature request to our R&D team to evaluate the possibility of updating glibc in a future system version.
Kind regards,
QNAP Support Team

I pointed out to them that on the QNAP website they strongly promote the fact that Roon can be installed on their systems, and that therefore I hope for a resolution to the current situation:

Creare un server musicale avanzato con QNAP e Roon

Andrea

---

Edit: the answer, just received:

Thank you very much for your suggestion regarding the glibc update. We appreciate your input and will submit a feature request to our R&D team so they can evaluate the possibility of including an updated version of glibc in a future system update.
Best regards,

[gTunes]

@Andrea_Riela

you can use the app “Container Station” directly, or install portainer on it, then use portainer to install the containers.

Portainer is very 2025. These days, the cool kids use Dockhand (https://dockhand.pro/)

Seriously - Dockhand is great and I think it’s a better choice for home users who don’t need Kubernetes.

@Andrea_Riela

I pointed out to them that on the QNAP website they strongly promote the fact that Roon can be installed on their systems, and that therefore I hope for a resolution to the current situation…

I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that you’re successful with this. I’ve been a vocal advocate of Roon supporting 1st party Docker images for years but I’m increasingly concerned about the cases I didn’t know existed, such as USB connections between QNAP devices and DACs and about the Roon update experience for less technical users if it requires an image update.

[David_Broughton]

@Andrea_Riela Thank you very much. I have also written to QNAP about this issue, and will probably get a similar response. I hope that they release a timeous update to rectify this. I’m one of the “less technical users”, so all this talk about “container station” and Roon docker is a bit bewildering to me. I hope Roon will issue clear and understandable directives on how this is going to work.