Roon isn't stable and they edit their forum to hide it

Roon had worked great for me as long as I use hard wired ethernet cables, as recommended by Roon. With WiFi, I’ll get random drops and I’ll have to click play again.

I find it hard to believe the issues mentioned here with app itself are inherent to Roon. Vast majority of issues I've seen with Roon on various forums  are outliers, otherwise we'd see same issues with mass numbers of users. Best I can come up is try to determine what users with no issues have in common ,and on the other hand, what do users with issues have in common.

Going through Roon issues on forums over the years the above is the norm, unique configurations that are difficult to troubleshoot. With so many users, hard to expect Roon to provide the number and quality of troubleshooters necessary to ensure answers for many of these issues. No doubt they've estimated cost of that exceeds benefit to them, willing to lose some customers. I generally don't even bother with app providers for troubleshooting, self help in expecting steep learning curve and/or using other users of app for needed help.

I'm not entirely sure that whatever issues I've experienced are even triggered locally.  It is true that the issues are similar to other users who hypothesize that it's some form of library/metadata update. 

That issue was happening quite frequently, as in every 2-3 days for about an hour at a time, and restarting the software or rebooting the server did nothing...the process simply restarted and killed Roon again after that. 

But I haven't seen the issue in maybe 10 days.  This makes no sense if the Roon core initiates some process on a fixed schedule (nothing I have done - haven't added anything to the library or modified anything).  

So I wonder if this is something on the Roon network end...it triggers a process.  So perhaps Roon has addressed it on their end somehow.

Amazing how many different types of issues Roon spews out.  

It is spectacular when it works.  It is incredibly frustrating when it doesn't.  And I feel like we are just guessing at what the problems may be...about as scientific as a Neanderthal wondering why the volcano just erupted. 

I have been a ROON Lifer even before the product was released, so maybe 10 years now.

A few things I have learned. 

1) If you are updating the software and things are not running as expected, then reboot the ROON Core. This has become less of an issue, and I cannot remmber the last time I rebooted.

2) If you are running hi-res streams then make sure you have enough bandwidth.

At one time I have my ROON core on the wrong side of my PowerLine adapter part of my home network. Playing hi-res resulted in intermittent drops. I moved the Core to the Ethernet side of my home network and that solved the hi-res issues for me.

3) I am using a cheap $500 DELL PC to run my Core. At one time I had 3 zones, Grouped some for DAC evaluations. I occasionally ran hi-res and I also had CONVOLUTION filters running inside the CORE. This is all heavy data processing. It worked fine with the cheap computer. 

ROON software is genius level audio code. However, it is code, and code evolves sometimes with glitches.

BTW - if anyone needs to use a BALANCE control for their system. Try ROON's and compare with an analog solution, such as a preamp. ROON's is spectacular. 

Who is Roon and how many people do they employ? I haven a lifetime subscription and familiar with it always wondered what is this organization?

It's a shame they don't offer customer service on the phone?

Roon support:

1) post your problem on forum 

2) 4 days later they ask you to reboot it. When I do and problem not fixed you post that .

3) 6 days later they then offer another very basic suggestion 

It's a nightmare...I learned after years of this the folks at Roon who really know the product are not the ones you get to interact with initially.

Getting to them can take weeks....and Room is something we pay for

It's a rip off.

I suspect OP has some kind of OS issues causing conflict.

I have cores on both Windows 10 and Ubuntu Server. All Roon cores are dedicated and run nothing else material.

Thanks I am trying throttled. We’ll see if that helps.

It does bring up another point about the Roon software, however, which is that its error messages are generally not helpful in troubleshooting. One message I see when Roon is having this problem is "media is loading slowly" - well it may be loading slowly because a Roon process is killing the software’s responsiveness - i.e. it is a local file on a HDD in the server. How could it be loading slowly other than because Roon is killing itself?

I honestly think that library composition and use of various things like Roon Tags has a lot to do with this. That would explain why problems follow from server to server.  Roon should deal better with unidentified albums, for example. 

I use rips from Synology NAS, streams from both Tidal and Qobuz, Roon radio stations, have library along line so 12k albums and never have issues. Again, I suspect OP has some kind of OS issues causing conflict.

@jji666  Curious as to whether you using analyzers in Roon setup? These may take up much processor resources. I go along with Taiko suggestions and turn both analyzers off, minimally try them throttled.

A couple of thoughts here, for whomever it may help - I find it best not to mix tracks from different services when building playlists on Roon. It gets quite wonky after a hundred or so tracks from say tidal and qobuz on the same playlist, but the one or two odd things begin to happen right after 45 to 50 tracks. As such, I avoid it altogether, and keep playlists service dedicated.

Also, roon does reboot on its own every half hour or so in my system, but that has never affected playback, and my queue goes on uninterrupted, while Roon comes back on line the moment I reaccess it.

Aside from these little hiccups, Roon has served me unfailingly the past three years or so. And, as with everything else in our hobby, your mileage may vary.

In friendship - kevin 

I've been a lifer with Roon since the beginning.  No problems with 12K+ albums with the core on a QNAP NAS, but Roon ARC freezing on an iphone has been a wreck and not worth endless deletion and reload of the phone app to restore operation.  I'm back to youtube on the phone. 

I’m a Roon lifer.  I joined about 4 years ago.  I’ve had my share of problems but they have all been about Windows, not about Roon. My only disappointment with Roon is their support model.  It depends on helpful users.  I don’t know what motivates the wonderful folks who make themselves available to help users resolve their problems, but I am grateful to them.  I wish there was phone support like Apple provides, but I expect the cost would be prohibitive!

Fact is Roon by its nature is a somewhat complex beast for the average person to get a handle on.  Definitely not plug  n' play.  That adds to teh # of issues or difficulties that people report.  Some may be Roons fault but others just chalk up to inexperience with the product or learning curve.  

I work with complex computer systems for a living so I have some experience in this area.  

Most things worthwhile are not necessarily easy.   Audiophiles know that.   That includes Roon.   

It's not hard to get started but there is so much that can be done it can become quite complex as you do more. 

I would expect to see a certain amount of user angst, especially from those who are less technical or not really up on modern technology.

Live and learn!  Roon is worth it.  The more you learn the more benefits reaped. 

I have no significant technical complaints after four years of heavy use. My core is a Roon Nucleus. I have to reboot my core maybe twice a year. Loading up new zones is slower for me now when I open the app, which is a slight annoyance, but I do have a lot of zones.

The one time I had a serious problem, I received good direct support after posting my data in the Roon forum.

Overall it's a great product and I frequently marvel at the fact I can have such great technology at my fingertips.

>> I've built maybe 10 different Roon servers/cores, possibly more.  Some Windows 10/11, some Ubuntu. <<

Understood. I've seen at least one post by a user who found many problems went away when they used ROCK on a Roon-approved NUC, instead of running under a general-purpose operating system. Obviously, there's no guarantee, and the only way to find out would be to try it, at some expense.

This is what I find so mystifying.  There isn't anything different about my Roon usage other than pushing it harder - 3 grouped zones, 3-4 remotes running, 11K albums, 152K tracks.  Lots of Roon Tags and 500 or so unidentified albums.

So as far as I can tell the only difference would be the volume of usage, the size of the library (which isn't that unusual), the number of Tags. 

Anyway, I probably should have switched around the title of this thread, which would be that the Roon forum is moderated to tone down discussion of stability issues.  I do understand that many use it without it being unstable.  Just keep your use moderate! 

Used it on a core from small green computer and it has been flawless - restarted about every 3 months.   Stable even with Arc.   

I run core on a minimal Windows host along with other things.  Not optimal but works well enough on the cheap.  CPU is definitely my bottleneck.  Not so bad that I have been inclined to upgrade to a more powerful host quite yet but likely will at some point.  
 

I still adore Roon and apply a lot of DSP regularly. 

@jpan 

There was a time when I, used to develop/program, would have said that the open source concept would produce tons of problems.  Intuitively it would seem so right?  But the opposite is the case.  I've had less trouble with open source applications than commercially/corporate generated software by a huge margin!  That ole profit margin will gitcha! lol

Yes I understand that most users don't have this issue.  As mentioned I think there have to be some uses of the database/library functions that aren't commonly used, at least to the level that I and others who have similar problems have used them. 

And if you are only streaming or have a very small local library, you are not likely to have a significant amount of unidentified albums, which Roon seems to be constantly trying to remedy, but with futility. 

Anyway, I'm glad that Roon works well for many.  And it works well for me 80% of the time.  It just so happens that other 20% seems to be when I really want to listen, and thus, 2 servers, severely reducing the likelihood of both servers being borked at the same time. Plus I just enjoy building these machines. 

But to be clear, there is nothing weird about my network, or the machines the cores are running on.  One is a clean Ubuntu server install with nothing else running. The other is currently a Win10 machine that has very little else running (i.e. I'll pop a browser to use the chromecast display function and show the artist photo). 

As above, my complaint is more about the forum than it is the product. 

@bbarten +100

"You'd be surprised how often the creators of the products that have these issues also have no idea what's going on. It's because we've created systems we can't truly fully understand."

Two words: Open Source.

Like @carlsbad2. I haven’t had any issues with Roon in the four years that I’ve been using a Roon Nucleus Rev B server to store my core and play music. 

Oh yeah, no question, all of these machines have been high powered. At least 6-8 cores and at least 3.6 - 3.8 Ghz base speed, i7 or i9 or AMD "equivalent," and PCIe 4.0 M2 system drives.

To me the issues seem library / database based - in the sense of there’s something in the library that causes Roon to go off the rails on processor power at various times. As above, two possible culprits is high use of Roon Tags (which I do) and having unidentified albums (I have maybe 500). The process of identifying albums in Roon is really cumbersome, and for many it’s just impossible anyway.

I've never had this issue with three custom build servers. With present custom build I'm rarely see anything above 5% usage in any particular core, this with Intel I9 processor. ATX board running Euphony OS.

I'd agree Roon forum not much good for troubleshooting, but then vast majority of issues are uniquely configuration based. Any issues I've had were due to operator error.My take is with Windows machines you better have powerful processor and max. services shut down or you may have issues.

I agree Roon's support model is not geared towards quick response and it's under-resourced.  That may change over time with their acquisition.  I've tried to use it multiple times but their support ideas always revolve around stripping down the network and stripping down the library.  That's significant work...I can see the logic, but that's not seemed to help anyway.

Plus these problems seem to propagate with new releases...fix a problem once and then a similar one pops a few months later. 

I get the sense that, as above, the product is so complex they can't really tell what's going on either. 

My OP was more about the locking down of the Roon forum than the product albeit the product drives the comments on the forum. Roon itself is a mixed experience with extreme highs and lows. 

I have had terrible experience with Roon.

It could not handle my library .

Their support model is atrocious for a product users pay for

It took them 1.5 yrs to figure out it couldn't handle my library.

They would then not refund me for my nucleus or the extra memory they advised me to add.

Terrible company which id put right up there with Comcast.

Thank God for Innuos Sense. Zero issues with my library

ROON SUCKS 

Thanks.  I agree it's a very complex and sophisticated product, and in many senses that is what attracts me to it.  I tend to adopt something and use it very deeply, which I'm sure stresses areas other users don't touch or stress.

To be clear, my point was not to bash the product per se albeit certainly that was the origin of why I was posting on the Roon forum as I was.  It was simply that Roon heavily moderates and sometimes edits posts and so I couldn't say it there.  The actual post was someone saying that they hope it isn't months before their issue is fixed, and my response is that for some issues it's been years and not months. 

All of that said, I feel I've vented enough. Thanks for the open forum for me to get that out of my system. Now, back to my dual servers...

As an IT Pro I've seen many ultra-frustrating issues that seem so severe that you think many others have to be seeing them too.  But there are often issues that only "certain" people see due to "who the hec knows what".  You'd be surprised how often the creators of the products that have these issues also have no idea what's going on.  It's because we've created systems we can't truly fully understand.  MS Windows is good example of this.  It's literally too complex to manage 100%.  Spit-balling is often utilized to solve problems.  Then if it works they move on never really understanding what was going on.  Good luck @jji666 !!!

I too started experiencing major performance issues with Roon requiring regular reboots about 6 months ago after running great for several years on a M1 Mac Mini with 8gb ram.

All end points and remotes became extremely sluggish and/or non-responsive even with Roon being the only app running on the M1 Mac Mini server.

I have since semi-permanently installed my M3 MacBook Pro with 18gb ram on my desktop, and am now running that as my Roon server and everything is running great again.

I suspect the combination of recent Mac updates coupled with Roon updates are using more resources than in the past, thereby causing performance issues for Roon users.

As an aside, I have more powerful Windows and Linux devices that I can use as my Roon server without issue, but I find that I get slightly better sound quality running from my M series Macs for some reason.

No issues here.

I've been using Roon since 2017 and I have a lot of experience with it. I've built maybe 10 different Roon servers/cores, possibly more.  Some Windows 10/11, some Ubuntu.  I don't know MacOS well enough to try my hand at that.  

In the end, what I've done is build 2 cores and I can switch between them when one is running the process that effectively kills Roon.

I certainly understand that many people don't have the same issues.  My take on this, after a ton of experience and communications with other users having similar problems, is that it's a metadata/database update process.  It's not network or hardware configuration.  

Why does it only affect some people?  I suspect it has to do with library composition - use of Roon's tags, and unidentified albums could be culprits.  

The main issue with this instability is that Roon uses only one core for this process and it maxes out the core and makes Roon slow to unresponsive and it then ultimately restarts itself, which of course interrupts the music.  That restart doesn't reset Roon to functional - the problem continues until the process is done. 

Anyway, that's what I was referring to.

In terms of the forum, I've had posts edited to leave positive comments and remove negative...and lately just deleting negative posts. 

This is not to say I don't love the product.  Well, it's a love-frustration thing anyway.  But I haven't found anything better.  I just wish Roon would code away from this architecture that does this.  

I have never used Roon.  That said, if this issue may be more configuration related than Roon service related, might that fact be an excellent discussion on Roon’s forum?  

@mike_in_nc I agree with you.  I've used Roon for 4 years with a cheap PC (NUC).  I've certainly had to restart it more than once or twice but I've never had any serious issues or problems that weren't resolved with a simple restart.  Asserting that Roon isn't stable in any general sense is almost certainly untrue, but that doesn't mean any given user's configuration might not be causing problems.  In my case I have an external hard drive that periodically needs to be attached to a PC in order to be "repaired".  I doubt that is an issue with Roon but I am sure some users might view it that way.  Given how insanely complicated Roon must be, and the amazing functionality it provides, I think it is understandable that the "moderators" are (overly?) zealous about censoring posts they might view as slanderous.

Hmmm.

Their moderators edit and delete posts.  It can get a little Orwellian. 

Equally, when you're the one who encounters a problem, it looks like it's a terrible coding job, whereas you may be running into some kind of platform-specific edge case. Unfortunately no software is completely free of bugs. I hate running into bugs, and I hope that the ones affecting you are fixed soon.

By the way, what platform are you using to run the Core?

Many of us use Roon for months and months without ever needing to restart the Core. In my case, running ROCK on a small dedicated PC (NUC), I think I've restarted (aside from updates) once or twice in three or four years.