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Please help with Roon server/core issue

Hi AGers, 

So long story short: I only stream music (do not own any). I have Tidal and Qobuz streaming through Roon. And that is my problem. I started out using a M1 Mac Mini to stream but I often lost connection to Roon. So I bought a Small Green Computer i5 Sonictransporter and LPS. SQ improved but not the Roon problem. 

We have fiber optic to the house, a fully wired network and I have Silent Angel N8 switch feeding the SGC Roon server and my Lumin T2. No wifi anywhere. 

Finally after a couple of years, the problems increased to the point that 192/24 files crackle and pop. So I wrote to the Roon Community Forum under the Support section.

The Roon support person wrote back that:

*****We’ve activated diagnostics for your account and RoonServer and here’s what we can confirm:

  1. Track downloads from Tidal and Qobuz’s servers are timing out with 24/192 FLAC files, and the prebuffer is barely ahead of playback. At times, it’s dropping out.
  2. There are sample dropouts reported with by RoonServer on T2 Zone. These at times accumulate sufficiently to cause unnatural interruptions on the stream.
  3. RoonServer constantly loses connection to upstream internet services due to network reachability changes in logs.

Your RoonServer’s intranet and internet connection appear to be struggling. How are you connecting your RoonServer machine to the internet?*****

Peter Lie from Lumin kindly wrote back and suggested I try changing my DNS to 8.8.8.8 - which I did. That did help a lot with SQ and speed but did not fully resolve the crackle and pop issue with 192/24 files. 

I would welcome any suggestions. 

Thanks, Nadine

128x128atanarjuat99
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,854 posts
 

Hmmm geographic location could matter in regards to how well connections to remote internet services in Roon perform.  Would be useful if other Roon users in same part of Canada could offer input.   Roon forum is probably best to get info like that.  
 

Meanwhile if it were me I would be running native Qobuz and Tidal apps to see how those perform versus Roon to help isolate any specific bottlenecks with specific services also baked into Roon. 

erik_squires
15,729 posts
 

OP:

Your basic step right now is to diagnose whether you have an internal issue or external.  External should be easy to see via any PC hooked up to Ethernet.  Use Ping and whatever your provider has for speed testing.

If that works well, then compare to measurements at the Roon server location.

As someone else has pointed out, it IS also possible you are having Internet routing issues.  that's more complicated, but first find out if your problem is internal vs. external.

unsound
7,311 posts
 

Just a guess here, but: are you using a VPN? If so, try turning it off when streaming. I've found VPN's to sometimes compromise signal integrity.

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,854 posts
 

Also wondering if you do any video streaming on same local network and if any performance or connection issues there?

atanarjuat99's avatar
atanarjuat99 OP
51 posts
 

@mapman Yes we do have streaming issues from time to time. Very irritating :) And our geographical location may be the culprit. We live in a small town up the coast of British Columbia about 80 km from Vancouver. Though we do have fiber optic to the house, the one other audiophile in town gave up on Roon - which may be a sign. 

@erik_squires I have done the ping test all over the house including from the switch with the Roon server. Always close to 1 gbps. 

@jbuhl I phoned the provider a couple of times. Apparently we have 1.5 gbps consistently into the house.... 

 

@audphile1 I just checked the modem. The fiber comes into it and goes out via copper ethernet. I ordered from Amazon USA a fiber to ethernet converter 5 minutes ago but it is going to take 10 days to arrive. 

@unsound No VPN except occasionally when I connect to my work server. But will make sure it is unconnected when streaming. 

@fastfreight I know what you are saying... just looked at a Grimm MU1 on USAM... expensive in CDN dollars especially as I just talked my partner into Focal Sopra 2s (arriving next week) 😹. But that might be the solution.

In the meantime, I have the fiber to copper converter coming and might even try and run fiber right to the streaming/tv area. 

One more question: when I went to the modem to see if it is converting the fiber to ethernet, I noticed that the core fiber coming in is just hanging there bare. No insulation. Is that normal?

Thanks again to all, Nadine

 

 

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