Yesterday my internet service was out for 12 hours which brought to my attention the ugly fact that the current version of Roon is useless without a live internet connection. You cannot play files in your local library, even if you try directly from your Roon server. At least not with Roon. To me there is no excuse for a vulnerability like this. Why do I have to keep backup music player software when I am paying for a perfectly good copy of Roon?
I get it that under these circumstances I will not be able to stream files from my on-line provider, nor do I expect the nice meta data that Roon normally supplys. However I most certainly should be able to access my local music library. Come on Roon and return this basic functionality to us!
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This is really not an acceptable answer or state of affairs. I wonder how many people in the popular on-line hifi chat groups are aware of this. Whereas I see little or no value in ARC, having access to my music when cut-off from the internet is a HIGHLY valuable feature to me. I wonder how many others would agree?
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There are many voicing discontent but alas they are banging their heads against the proverbial brick wall. Roon have decided on the direction of product development and won’t be changing.
Like you ARC is a replication of many more effective applications and, for me, of little use 
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Roon has always required an internet connection it just was only needed every few weeks to check license before , now it’s all the time. Arc is not the sole reason for this internet requirement. They have stated to vastly improve and keep on improving Roons search engine they needed to move it to be hosted in the cloud. Right or wrong this is the decision they have taken, yes it wasn’t fully broadcast at the time other than a note in 2.0 requirements. It has been covered at vast length on other forums and websites related to hifi but not great if you avoid such places.
If you feel strongly about it as others do as do I, then there is a thread in feature requests to bring it back, make your feeling known there. Or vote with your wallet if you’re still a yearly subscriber. I can’t see them changing unless they see a large downturn in subscription numbers. If your a lifetime then you don’t have many options left to you unfortunately other than grin and bear it or just stop using it.
This is why some of us stayed with Roon 1.8 (legacy). It still works like before letting you use the system without an internet connection for a few weeks. The addition of ARC was not worth giving up off line use. Most of the development post 2.0 has been to fix ARC issues so there are no new killer features that make me consider switching so far. Interestingly since there are not constant updates to tweak ARC version 1.8 has proven incredibly stable and problem free. I would love it if Roon would reconsider its decision on off line use but at least I am grateful that they have left 1.8 legacy for those of us who don’t need or want ARC.
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Why does everyone think 2.0 and its always on internet requirement is for ARC it isnt. The always on internet requirement is for the search engine as it moved to the cloud so they can more easily update and develop for it . ARC would need internet regardless of this requirement but has not forced it.
Perhaps because the two coincided? Anyway the internet based search feature appears mainly to be an administrative convenience for Roon, not much of a consumer benefit from what I can see. ARC is a highly questionable utility since it seems the most convenient thing is to stream music directly from one’s provider when out of the home. When I am away for any length of time I shut my server down anyway to protect from possible power surges, possible hacking and save energy.
You could offline some content in Roon arc and use that with Bluetooth until the service is back up. No its not comparable but it keeps music flowing in the short term.
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They’d be very clever hackers to know you are away. 
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At least having the option to only to a “check in” every few hours would already be great.
Recently we had a lot of lightning storms, and only the internet was affected.
So yeah… no music.
Not the end of the world… plenty of options to play some local music with AirPlay… but still, there would be better options between the need to be constantly online.
The feature suggestion category is of full of requests for very useful features that can only work by moving more and more stuff into the cloud. If Roon ever wants to tackle this, then they won’t have a choice.
That said, I still think a very limited offline “just play my own music” mode would be good, if only to prevent ongoing threads like this one
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When my internet out, I use Lumin app, Lightning DS for Auralic or Teac HR, for my local network music. DS Audio app work really good too, if your music on Nas.
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I can do that with the Qobuz app and don’t need Roon at all, but the problem is you don’t know when the outage is going to occur.
Likewise for those who commented about using 1.8, I do have an old macmini with 1.8 still on it however you need the internet to switch your user license from machine to machine…gotcha!
I like this idea, they could call it “disaster mode”.
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Hackers are generally fairly clever, aren’t they? 
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See this long thread in the Feature Suggestions and be sure to vote if you feel an offline capability in Roon would be beneficial…
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What Jorge said. I’m also still on 1.8, have no interest in ARC, and am very grateful that 1.8 legacy has been made available to us.
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v1.8 is a nice solution if… a) your internet service is less than 100% stable, b) you have your own local music library, and/or c) you don’t want to use ARC. But, v1.8 is stopgap and certainly not a long term solution for most. No idea how long Roon will support it, but it it is unlikely to ever receive any further development.
Personally, I do use ARC and fortunately, my internet is relatively stable so v2.0 is working fine for me… mostly. But I have had a few internet down times since 2.0 release that are frustrating.
Still hoping (against hope) that Roon will step up to the challenge of an offline mode.
Honestly I understand the frustration of no Roon without Internet. But for me this is a non issue, I rarely lose internet service and if I do it usually for a short amount of time.
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