What’s wrong with Roon on iOS?

Roon Core Machine

Core on Synology NAS

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Gigabit LAN/WLAN Netgear Router switch AP

Connected Audio Devices

Sonos; optical Hi-Fi amp

Number of Tracks in Library

20.000

Description of Issue

Roon is hardly usable on iPhone and iPad Pro due to very slow performance. Starting tracks takes minutes etc;
Not experiencing these extreme performance issues on PC, although it’s slow in general.

In Addition there seems to be issues with playback of local files - simply doesn’t start. Streaming via Tidal works better…

Any conclusions?

Welcome to the Roon community

Can you expand on this further. Model of your Netgear router, switch make/model and the same for AP.

Also, what’s the model of the Synology?

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@Markus_Spani, welcome to the community. A fellow user here, but based on what you have provided, this appears to be symptomatic of home network issue, but not completely sure yet.

So the community and Roon staff can provide better support to you, can you please provide additional information on your Synology model number, your Netgear router model number, and the models and iOS versions of your iPhone and iPad?

3 Likes

NAS cpus are likely to be the culprit here…They really are not cut out for heavy database applications like Roon

also detail the NAS implementation like SSD location internal or USB etc RAM too

“Heavy Database applications”…

Being involved in a Software Development Project for specialized CMS Systems I have quite an idea of how DBs work and what can be expected and what not. Concept of Roon is not rocket science.

IMHO we are experiencing a workload distribution issue between client, core and Roon-Server. Having Core on my Synology (DS918+ 4Core Celeron System) works rather fine when I am running the PC-Client - on iOS its hardly usable. Client app in such configuration should be sleek and optimized - shouldnt make any difference on todays capable mobiles.

Its for instance hard to imagine what kind of “heavy database” workload roon is performing when just starting the client - only to get the first overview takes minutes from time to time…
There is also an issue with the iPhone client which is pending for years now (shut down - reinstalls are recommended etc).
Switching between Play and Stop isnt snappy at all… etc

My guess is that there is some extensive memory usage/distribution issue caused by the code which is for sure not optimized in an efficient manner.

It’s a pity because Roon is such a strong product but its hard to recommend for not nerdy customers…

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Single thread performance of the Celeron J3455 is low, which is most likely one issue with your setup.

It would also be helpful to understand if Roon server is running on SSD, and, for comparison, how the PC is connected to the network.

I have an iPad 12.9 2nd gen with iOS 16.1 and iPhone 13pro max iOS 15.7.1and am not seeing issues with Roon being slow with Roon on nucleus+ using Roon 2.0 build 1141 on iPad and 2.0 early access on n+
Maybe update your post with versions you are using as well as how network is connected, I.E. where are Ethernet connections in your system , wifi etc

As above. The Intel Celeron J3455 is inadequate for the task at hand. You really need to be on an i3/i5 for decent performance.

I wouldn’t say inadequate. Not ideal.

I briefly used a AWOW mini PC Windows 10 Pro 8GB RAM 128GB SSD, Quad-Core Intel Celeron J3455, 4K HD Mini Desktop Computer. It worked ok but did get to low x10s in precessing under the signal path.

I used it straight to a DAC and was ok.

Hi @Markus_Spani,

Thank you for patiently awaiting an official response from Roon.

I have to chime in on the system requirements topic. Roon does in fact list our system requirements for core machines and they can be found here. This is for users with a typical setup meaning those with modest libraries and doing a minimal amount of DSP. Having a core below these specs can certainly cause the problems you’re experiencing.

In looking at the diagnostic logging I also see quite a few errors related to audio analysis. Many of the errors come from files located in your “Apple Musik” folder.

My first recommendation is to use the clean-up library function within Roon under settings>Library> Clean-up library. That could clean up some of the issues for us too.

Alternatively, you can also turn off audio analysis under settings>library>background audio analysis speed.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Wes

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