Weird. This wasn’t happening when I first used the web display. On chrome, web display stays frozen on the artist it starts on. The time bar seems to be frozen at a random point half-way through the song. The browser window isn’t frozen - I mean, you can still use Chrome as a browser etc., but the image from Roon goes stagnant. Too bad I really liked the feature and installed another screen in my study to use it.
Hey @James_I,
Does this occur with all content?
Does this occur for all Displays? If you use a different browser or Chromecast does the same behavior occur?
Have you tried rebooting your Core machine?
Thanks!
The core machine has been rebooted since I first noticed the issue, but not specifically to fix the web display. It’s been through a reboot.
It happens with Firefox and Chrome. Both browsers are open at the same time on the Core machine, neither are updating.
I don’t have a Chromecast to try that.
This is new behavior. I set up multiple displays and it worked all weekend (the weekend right after it was released, not this last weekend) while I enjoyed having the album covers and artist images all around my listening area. Then it simply started freezing instead. If I recall correctly, I noticed the same issue on a different install at my other house right before I shut it down. Not sure about that but can report that back next week.
FURTHER INFO: I’m not sure this is related. I have roonbridge on a Win 7 PC as my endpoint. When my core goes into sleep mode, and then I bring it back, the core has some issue with the roonbridge. It sees it, but it flashes on and off on the roon display (on the core) and I cannot play anything until I go to the roonbridge PC and stop all of the RAAT/Roonbridge processes and then restart Roonbridge. This behavior only started with the prior debug software release right before the web/chromecast display release and never had a problem before that. I don’t know that it is a related issue, but just in case.
As a general matter, Roon seemed more stable before the prior 2 releases. But that may be in the eye of the beholder relative to the hardware it is used with.
Thank you for the info here, @James_I!
If you use a different machine as a web display besides the Core does the same behavior occur?
Do you have any antivirus or firewall active on the Core machine? If so, and you temporarily disable them, is there any change?
Hi Dylan-
I just tried on a different machine (Win 10, Chrome) and the display did not update. It looks like the time bar on it froze when I forwarded the song to 20 seconds before the end in order to see if it updated, and it did not update.
Would the firewall settings be relevant to a browser on the core machine? I will have to check that later. Clients are screaming for work!
Hey Dylan - I did some quick tests:
(1) Turned off Malwarebytes and then refreshed the Roon display screen in Chrome. No change. The track-time progress bar updated tot he current time of the track playing but didn’t continue to move. Froze immediately.
(2) Then deactivated the Windows Defender firewall. Same as #1. No improvement.
(3) Closed and opened Roon. It’s back to updating the web display - it changed artist and album images, etc.
Who knows when this will repeat. What I will say is that I know I had rebooted the machine since that problem started and that I had closed and reopened Roon more recently than that. So it recurred at least once or twice from the first time, if not more.
I’ve had to reboot and close Roon because Windows moves my applications around when it sleeps my main display (moves them to a secondary display that has an HDMI Problem Solver on it). I don’t think that is related but mention it just in case.
I’m surprised this hasn’t been reported elsewhere. My Roon core is a dedicated Windows 10 machine with plenty of horsepower and there’s basically nothing else on it. Most recent computer I’ve built and I leave my music machines alone because I don’t want to destabilize them.
EDIT: Btw, I love the overall concept for Chromecast and web display. Of course there’s always room for options or other improvement. But the idea is great and really consistent with Roon’s concept of making unused hardware fit into the Roon ecosystem and turn a doorstop into a critical audio component. Thanks very much for the idea…just gotta make sure it keeps working…
Hey @James_I,
The next time you experience this behavior can you let me know the time that the issue occurs? Once I have the timestamp I’ll enable diagnostics on your account and pass the diagnostics report along to the team for further investigation.
Thanks!
Will do!
(Dumb 10 character requirement)
I have been experiencing this same behavior. I see this when viewing the web display on chromium on my raspberry pi and on my chromecast. In both cases the devices continue to play music properly but the display stays frozen on the artist it started on and the waveform does not progress with the song
Thanks for reaching out, @Jack_Riley!
Can you give some information about your current networking setup (what networking hardware is in use, and how the devices are connected) as well as some information on your Core machine?
As mentioned above, next time you see this occur please make a note of the time and let us know! We will then enable diagnostics on your account and take a closer look.
I am running the core on Linux, connected via wireless bridge to the endpoints. Restarting the core does fix the issue temporarily, I haven’t tested enough to pinpoint how long it takes to revert back to freezing.
One thing I have noticed on the web display is that refreshing the browser will make the artist/song/waveform current but it remains static. Essentially if the display is frozen on the current song and the song ends and I hit refresh, the display will update to the new artist and song but it will remain there indefinitely. I don’t know of an analogous way of testing the chromecast
Another interesting note is that artist images will continue to cycle when frozen. So if the display froze on Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd, the display will cycle different Lynyrd Skynyrd images even after I’ve switched to playing Kendrik Lamar
Same issue. My ChromeCast display is stuck on the first song that is played when Roon starts. Time stamp and album photo is static as well, though the songs change per queue. Lyrics don’t display as well.
I have an Intel i7 NUC ROCK, ChromeCast is wirelessly connected and displaying on my TV. All other (non-display) end points work perfectly.
Update: rebooting ROCK seems to have worked.
Happening right now. 9:30AM CST. I won’t reboot anything until Roon support confirms they have checked the diagnostics.
Here’s how I got here:
(1) Roon up and running, opened browser on core machine, input the URL, and have display running.
(2) Close Roon on the core. Core machine goes to sleep.
(3) Wake up core machine. Reopen Roon.
(4) Browser displays black, then just word “ROON” Refresh browser and see now playing, but it does not update - stays frozen
Hope you can fix this!
Hey @James_I,
Now that I have the timestamps, diagnostics have been enabled on your account. The next time your Core is active a diagnostics report will automatically be generated and uploaded directly to our servers
Once that’s been received, I’ll be sure to update this thread and pass the diagnostics over to the team for further analysis.
Thanks!
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The core is active now, playing Bob Marley, but the web display says John Lennon…
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James,
Just saw your post, went to Roon and copied the web link to Chrome and started displaying to Chrome. Playing second song now and everything working fine.
My Core is Roon on a Windows 10 NUC which also runs my Plex server and Chrome is running on a Windows 10 laptop that I’m currently using Excel on as I listen to music streamed to a Chromecast Audio.
Fourth song playing now and Chrome is still up to date. I’ll keep monitoring and report back if the display fails. FYI … also monitoring playback on a RoPieee touch screen which is currently in sync with Chrome.
Tim
It appears as well that if the web display page is open and then Roon is closed and reopened, the web display has to be refreshed to re-sync with Roon. This is a different issue than the one noted above where the web display stops updating whether it is refreshed or not.
It is not a huge problem, but it means that one cannot have devices around the house with the web display page open and just leave them open, so that when Roon is running they just start to display the track, artist, etc. You have to go around the house and refresh all the browser windows.
I’m not a web developer but I have to think at least this part is a pretty easy fix. Have the browser-side code check to see if Roon is up and awake every few seconds.
Hey @James_I,
First, I want to thank you for your patience here while the team has been investigating this behavior. I had a chat with the team about this, and wanted to follow up with our next steps.
The team is still looking into this and is hoping that you can provide a little more information here that should aid them in the investigation. Please verify the following information:
- Which versions of Chrome and Firefox were used
- Please share a screenshot of Settings > Displays
- Can you share some additional information about your current setup including networking information (what networking hardware is in use and how are your devices connected)
- Can you confirm that when the freeze occurs that the Display is still showing active from the volume’s Display menu? If you disable and re-enable the Display does it (temporarily) correct itself?
Thanks!
I’m happy to do that. It will probably take a few days.
I think Chrome and Firefox are up to date - I installed Firefox and Chrome specifically to do this; before then it was only the default OS browser on the Roon core (I don’t surf the web from the core).