Windows Roon core reports same audio device for 2 different clients after cloned drive

[Steven_Davis]

Roon Core Machine

Windows Server 2019 Standard
Thinkserver TS140 Xeon

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Netgear switches

Connected Audio Devices

Number of Tracks in Library

Description of Issue

After cloning a disk for a new system the audio device appears to the Roon core as the same for the clients rather than having a discrete audio device for each client. This problem as described in another topic appears to be the same. The fix had something to do with a Windows registry key but was not published in the topic.

Here is link to the final response from that topic indicating to “messaging @support directly” Windows Roon Core and Roon Remote Show Same Audio Devices [Solved] - #35 by noris

I’d like to point out that “messaging @support directly” relies on one knowing what that expression means.

[Jim_F (Minimalist)]

I don’t think disk cloning works for installing Roon on a new system.

[Steven_Davis]

Just to be clear the Roon core was not changed. A new client machine was created by cloning the disk on an existing client machine.

[Jim_F (Minimalist)]

Probably the same issue.

[brian (Brian Luczkiewicz)]

Cloning Roon’s database directories at the disk level will cause some confusion and we don’t recommend it. On first run, Roon generates identifiers for the Roon Core, audio devices, and other stuff, and when you blindly duplicate these, it’s difficult for Roon to tell the two sets of identifiers apart.

Instead of cloning Roon’s database at the drive level, I suggest making a backup using Roon on the source machine, and restoring it on the target machine.

Then, to get out of trouble with the audio devices, exit roon, delete the c:\Users\YOUR USERNAME\AppData\Local\RAATServer folder and then restart Roon. You will have to re-enable the audio devices on the new machine, but they should get fresh identifiers and no longer conflict with each other.

[Steven_Davis]

Thanks Brian.

I followed a similar process as described in the article the link I posted refers to. It did not clear the issue.

The article later shows it was solved using a Windows registry modification but that details for the remedy are not posted in the topic.

If you refer to the closing posts of that topic you’ll see whatever was done corrected the issue and the tech suggested messaging @support for the information.

[brian (Brian Luczkiewicz)]

If you’re comfortable editing the registry, try clearing out everything in HKCU/Software/Windows-SLS.

Note, you still may need to do the stuff I suggested above in addition.

[Steven_Davis]

That seems to have fixed the issue. I did note that the physical_address value for both clients was the same. I assume it’s some sort of unique identifier for the client as it was replaced with a new value when the Roon client initialized on the client where I removed physical_address.