Is Catalina really the latest OS you can run? 2013 model?
I’d turn Spotlight back on, it helps the OS provide responses to applications, even those that doesn’t use it for search themselves.
And lastly… your track count is quite high for Roon’s capabilities on MacOS, especially for older hardware.
To troubleshoot I’d create a new MacOS user and do a fresh set up of Roon server there (with Spotlight on) and see if you get better results or the same. If it’s the same then it’s probably lack of power.
Catalina is the latest I can run on this mac. It is still supported. That is NOT the problem.
Yes you’re probably right. I’d still go for lack of power but at least try a new user (vanilla setup, no changes or ‘optimisations"0, it’s a very telling troubleshooting step.
I subscribe to both Tidal and Qobuz and a large number of albums are favorited in both streaming services - meaning the same album appears on my library grouped under the main album (usually Qobuz if I don’t own it). Grouping alternate versions of albums is a killer feature in Roon for me.
It is possible that there are hickups in their servers when I search. It is possible I suppose that having BOTH services creates an issue if each search is not running in its own thread (which would be insane).
I would love it if Roon could provide some stats on such matters as part of Roon - sort of a Roon activity monitor.
I have always noted these stalled queries tend to happen when you’d expect high activity (eg at night in the US). Another issue is tracks - even local ones - taking up to 15-20 seconds to start playing, but lets tackle one issue at a time.
Check the Activity Monitor plots. Again, if people can run the core on a NAS it should run just fine here. I am not even using DSP!
I don’t disagree at all. But evidence seems to point to poor performance for your library size combined with MacOS, especially on such old hardware (I run the same vintage). CPU plots will not offer much insight.
I use Pihole with Level3 dns. I am going ti try “restart dns resolver” next time it fails instead of reboot the router. Thanks for the info!
Suggestions or complaints about Discourse are better directed to Discourse. Roon can’t fix that.
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Understood
I have to say that given CPU is not taxed at all, and neither are memory, disk access speed, and network speed (all of which are up to today’s standards), I simply cannot explain why a search for Nils Frahm would take over 2 minutes. I am not talking 1 second vs .1 seconds here, the query is clearly stalled someplace else.
If you can think of a different reason this would be, I am all ears.
Any chance you can try the new user idea with Spotlight turned on?
My test:
Does it take 2 mins now? If it does then it’s likely hardware. If not then it as as I mentioned earlier a blip on their metadata servers.
Search does not seem to be working very well at all. Searched Shostakovich symphony no. 10 and got just one result for 3 symphonies - none of them no. 10. Did the search on Qobuz and plenty to chose from. Then have to make it a Qobuz favourite to find on Roon. Some serious work needed here from Roon.
I get pages of results from “shostakovich 10”
I’m not on this forum often enough to respond immediately. However, if I have to use Roon in a particular time so that my searches don’t take two minutes, it is in my book a piece of gar-ba-ge.
To be clear - NOONE FROM ROON HAS REACHED OUT TO ME - so far.
To be clear: I am really annoyed at Roon (in case you didn’t see this). They have ignored me, they have not even suggested - USE THIS! - nothing.
@danny Does this make sense to you as customer service?
Largest Libraries
If you have over 250K+ tracks in your library, consider us impressed! You’re among the top .01% of Roon users, and you have a library most of us could only dream of.
With libraries this large, we expect the right hardware will work, but it’s definitely not something that we test with in-house. Your best bet will be to get a beefy Roon OS or Windows setup (we do not recommend standard Linux or macOS Cores for this) with a fast new CPU and plenty of RAM.
From Roon’s help pages.
Your problem is twofold:
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You are running a Roon Core with a 248,000 track library on a 2012 Mac mini with Catalina MacOS;
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You are in denial that running a library of that size on such hardware and OS might result in performance issues.
I expect Roon staff will look in shortly, but have no control over that. Other than telling you that Windows is in your future I’m not sure that there is anything they can do.
Shirley you can’t be serious, and don’t call me darling. 
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Tried it again. Still only one album with either Shostakovich 10 or symphony 10 even though I’ve put one in my library!