I had some issues with Roon from the beginning, most were related to my wifi - so I updated my wifi last summer and those issues went away.
Then it was more or less smooth sailing until 1.8 came along.
I have various support threads opened which are left to rot in some corner of the support shed… I am getting polite apologies every now and then, but no solution… apparently the support backlog is huge, could that be related to the botched 1.8 release? just sayin…
Anyway, I am willing to consider that MAYBE it is my Roon core computer, even though it exceeds the minimum Roon requirements for a Windows based Roon core…
So I am reluctantly considering a dedicated machine, a NUC maybe or a Mac Mini, or something in the range of 3-400EUR. I am not willing to pay the premium for a Nucleus and I am happy to tinker a little with installing my own ROCK machine in a fanless case.
I would like to know from users if ROCK installations on various hardware are more stable? What kind of issues, if any, do you experience since 1.8?
(if your windows-based Roon core works perfectly fine, I honestly believe you, no need to let us know here, thanks a lot!)
I use ROCK on a PrimeMini 4 with Intel Core 8i7-8650U vPro (NUC7i7DN), 2x8 GB DDR4-2400MHz, 2 TB SSD internal storage, directly connected to my modem/router via Ethernet.
I have no issues with general stability, before and after 1.8 (my issues have been mostly around UI changes, but most of them are now solved with the various update since the initial release).
Minor issues with the Roon Core are sometime slow loading of an album and extremely rare cases where a track could not be loaded and skipped (streaming via Tidal and Qobuz). But my guess is that the cause of this is more related to cloud services outside my local network.
I can relate to your frustration with Roon’s non-support. I reported an issue almost 6 weeks ago and all I’ve heard is crickets. For such a fantastic product (when it does what it’s supposed to do), their support is among the worst I’ve seen.
Yeah I see it all the time. People who need help and no response for days and weeks. I feel really bad when I see it, but I really don’t how what to do to help. I paid someone to make a rock for me.
I think that all of us who come to Roon are looking for the same thing. So to me, its a small community of people that share the same passion.
Its like people in my neighborhood are having car troubles on the side of road, I will stop evertime no matter what, to help them out. Here, I’m not sure what to do, so I’ve been trying to not look…and in the back of my mind, I keep thinking how i would feel , if I needed help and couldn’t even get a response for weeks.
And yes I have a stable roon experience and have for the last 3 months, but I’m researching what my plan b looks like if I can’t play music for weeks
my computer is stable and has no issues with ANYTHING except Roon. So, no, I don’t care that there are windows Roon cores that work fine as long as no one can tell why theirs work whereas mine doesn’t… really, hearing things like “hey, mate, dunno, but it all works fine for me” doesn’t help at all…
Interesting that, while there isn’t enough support staff, there was someone available to change the title of my thread from “Since 1.8 Roon is abysmal but I’m willing to give it one more chance” to the much more favorable title you see now…
I run ROCK in a VM and I give it 2 cores @3.4Ghz with 8GB and it’s stable. You might try running in a VM just to identify if it clears any kind of error. That set-up is way on the tinkering side of things and may introduce new problems. I did write some documentation on how to stand-up ROCK with VirtualBox but never published it as I couldn’t find someone who was interested in testing my doc.
Otherwise, without knowing what your issues it not possible to comment on if ROCK would be expected to change behavior. I do enjoy ROCK. Having Roon set-up as an “appliance” with no dependencies on anything other than the host server (which hosts other things so I have to maintain that anyway) is wonderful.
The c.o.o. of the company has stated that some posts make this a toxic work environment for members of the staff. I don’t think the original post was bad. I don’t think it was toxic, at all…but trying to understand the c.o.o. posts and perspective, I assume they think it was not kind.
This is a great community filled even greater people. The two things that are difficult to understand are the lack of support, and the intense moderation. Its a no joke zone.
ROCK is rock-stable. With info on this website about installation things went smoothly and I was up in running in 30 min. It boots in 10 sec. Lightning fast on a 10i7FNH and a major upgrade from running a Windows 10 machine – plus no more annoying Windows updates to muck things up. Stick with recommended hardware and read the postings about installation carefully.
I agree that a self built NUC with ROCK on it is a great option. It is what I use and has had no major issues for years now. Minor glitch issues were with Tidal connectivity (not a NUC or Rock issue) or an update some time back that needed a reboot to fix. Only persistent issues that came up were with the Roon remote and android… but so far that has been gone for a while for me.
I am a keen fan of Roon. I am running Roon for more than 3 years now.
I tried Roon on Windows and Linux and I can tell you they are all great; I guess most people with any issues are due to network problems at their end.
Lately, for a couple of months, I am running on Rock. I can tell you it is amazing. I like the simplicity it brings. It is simple, powerful and without being sure it sounds the best. Follow the setup instructions.
Enjoy the music by Roon.
Absolutely. I originally bought a Nucleus and had so many problems with the d*mn thing that I returned it. Went to SMG and got the SonicTransport i5 and ultraRendu…not a single hitch since then.
ROCK is excellent compared to another OS and Roon Server running within that OS.
Personally I had more improvement moving from WiFi to Ethernet, then a smaller improvement moving from Windows to ROCK.
I’d say move to Ethernet first if you can, rather than spending lots of cash on a new core. That is core and endpoint connected to Ethernet. Fine to use your phone or any other device connected via WiFi to control playback.
For me ROCK has been solid so far.
As other posters have suggested it should be hard wired on ethernet to your network.
Depending on your ripped music library size, a USB attached hard drive connected directly to the NUC is also superior to using a NAS in my experience.
Have never had any issues with ROCK. If it wasn’t for the NUC physically sitting on a shelf in my basement I would not even know it was there. That’s the way it should be.
@DanMtsn I used to use rock on the same motherboard and cpu combo as I now run windows 10.
So if you swap out your ssd for a new one you could try and see if rock will run, but as you don’t identify what your hardware is it’s hard to say if it might work. If your not using an ssd this could be a source of issues, but you didn’t say what the issues are either with windows.
