I hope someone can help me with this little issue.
When I started using Roon, I put all the music in the Organized folder. And from what I understand it’s much better to use the Watched one instead. So I read on the forum how to move from the old to the new folder. So this is how I did it:
Previously the organized folder was in my Macbook Pro, now I created the watched folder on my NAS.
I moved all music to another partition on my Macbook HD, deleted the organized folder, disabled it in Roon. Once all this was done, I copied all files to the new watched folder on the NAS.
What happens now is that the music won’t show up automatically in Roon unless I restart the software (core installed on the Macbook). In the previous set up with the organized folder, everything was updated instantly.
Even if I go into the settings and do a Force Rescan it won’t find the music added. Only once I restart.
Any ideas why the instant update is not working anymore?
PS: I even tried with installing a watched folder on my Macbok Pro with exact same result. I thought it could be releated to the NAS, but it wasn’t apparently.
Hi @Martin_Brodin ---- Thank you for the feedback and my apologies for the troubles here. To help me evaluate this behavior you are noticing, may I kindly ask you for the following:
Screenshots of your “storage” tab found under settings.
In your report you mentioned the following:
“What happens now is that the music won’t show up automatically in Roon unless I restart the software (core installed on the Macbook).”
Can you provide any further insight into this observation you have made? Are you noticing any patterns or anything else that may be influencing this?
And from what I noticed is that when I upload music to the smb:// folder, it doesn’t react to those uploads in real time. I have to restart Roon for them to be visable. Sometimes it works by rescanning but not so often.
When I use the local folder (both organized and watched) on Macbook it always goes instant. I even tried by deleting the organized folder just to avoid any conflicts, but the issue remains.
No doubt Eric will be along to offer a more detailed explanation, but when a Watch Folder is “internal” to the PC, then the OS will “notify” Roon that a change has taken place…which in turn causes Roon to look at that Folder and reflect the change in the Roon UI almost immediately
However, when the Watched Folder is on an SMB mount, then there is a known issue [discussed here many times before] that SMB does not send messages back to the OS that a change has occurred in the folder…and therefore Roon does not get informed
And then the only time that Roon becomes aware that a change has been made is when the Watched Folder is rescanned at Startup…a Forced Rescan will sometimes work, but again if the Folder indicates that “no change has occurred”, the Roon app will ‘skip over’ that folder
The Roon guys are not happy with this…but they are limited in how they can influence the design of these Global Protocols…and for the moment, their hands are tied
I was thinking of the same since it works smooth with the local ones.
Do you think it’s gonna be the same if I add a MacMini and use that as the local stored files?
The Macbook has limited storage capacity and will run out soon once I start adding music.
[quote=“Ronnie, post:6, topic:18395, full:true”]
Three quick questions
For you, How big a deal is the “wait” for the new additions to show up??
It’s not so much big drama. It’s just nice to double check the new additions so everything looks alright with metadatas and such. And since I was used that it worked with my previous organized folder. I like to understand how things works and not
Would you put the Mac Mini in the Listening Room or another??
In the listening room I guess. What did you have in mind? Any ideas? Pro/cons?
How many Albums and approx how many Gb do you think you will need for your current library plus future expansion??
Hard to say, but around 1000 CD’s
Allowing for future expansion, then a 2Tb or 3Tb drive would be sufficient for the forseeable future…especially the MQA Streaming propects thru Tidal
So, either installing a 2nd large hard drive within the Mac Mini…or using a Portable Drive would allow you to achieve what you want
An internal or direct attached USB drive will tell Roon that changes have been made, bypassing the above issue
Those portable drives are very quiet, making them suitable for use in a listening room…and also allows you to bring you Library on travel or holiday with you [along with your Macbook]
I have linked to a 4Tb drive to show what’s possible…but you may prefer to opt for the 2Tb or 3Tb equivalent
That’s why I asked how big an issue it was for you…because a NAS will do everything else…so I wouldn’t call it a 2nd choice…just an alternative that allows you to bypass the SMB issue above
Lots of people here use NAS, and live with the SMB issue…so the choice is yours…above was only suggesting other options
Hi @Martin_Brodin ----- Thank you for following up and providing the requested screenshots. I wanted to touch base with you, because the feedback given by @Ronnie is sound (Thanks @Ronnie ).
We have indeed noticed this phenomenon, where a network storage device making use of an SMB mount will at times misinform the operating system when a change has occurred in it’s folder structure. Thus the application is not aware of any changes that were made.
Our CTO Brian sums this behavior up very well in his post found here, stating:
Roon: Hey OS X, is the network folder mounted?
OS X: Yup. Mounted
Roon: Ok, tell me the directory listing for my watched folder
OS X: That folder is empty, buddy
Roon: Really? That seems wrong. Are you sure the network folder is still mounted?
OS X: Yup, mounted.
Roon: Ok, tell me the directory listing for my watched folder again
OS X: That folder is still empty, buddy
Roon: Double-check that it’s mounted for me, OK?
OS X: Yup, it’s still mounted. Jerk.
Roon: OK, I’m gonna trust you on this…
With 1.3 being release in the near future, I can confirm that there have been a few changes made to enhance the overall performance of the application. These improvements have been tested and retested over the past few months, so I expect the behavior been experiencing to improve once 1.3 goes live.
Thanks for the detailed information.
One more question related to storing on NAS. When I remove a stored folder on the NAS via the Roon app on iPad, then only the music files will be deleted. No other files like jpg’s or similar or the actual folder will be deteleted. Is this the way it should be? It’s actually the same in the Watched/organized folders stored locally.
Hi @Martin_Brodin ---- When you deleted content from Roon only the media will be deleted. No other files in those directories will be touched and upon doing so before the process can be completed Roon will have a dialogue box appear with everything that is about to be deleted.
