Brain Farts w/ Roon Nucleus

I have roon and nucleus, lifetime roon user. I hate annual fees.

I’m not thrilled with how roon handles file management issues as well as connectivity issues with a Microsoft desktop.  Incredibly technical and the interfaces are really glitchy. But I do like the album descriptions they draft.

I don’t know if anyone else has trouble with the file management system and yes the support is dreadful. Would be nice if you could speak to someone on the phone. But the forum offered does have people who respond. 

Roon can be very CPU intensive.  I run it on a very modest powered device that works well but often bottlenecks on CPU.  Will likely move to a faster device with more CPU horsepower at some point.  
 

Personally I think the CPU requirements for Roon core are somewhat exaggerated.  I run mine on an AMD 5600G and never have an issue.  Not sure how this compares to a Nucleus.  The CPU intense work, except during upgrades, is the DSP if you have it enabled as well as any conversions, especially from PCM to DSD.  

Otherwise I hardly ever see it use very much at all.  Of course that’s all relative. :) 

I understand that the OP doesn’t want to lift the hood... but that may be the least expensive option.  If the OP was able to run top or better yet, nmon, and watch what happens when it brain farts he may learn a lot.  

It could all be bad Roon.  Bad.  Or it could be a lot of other things like a bad drive or intermittent network which causes the system to stall.  

I don’t regret keeping my life very simple. If I’m expected to be part of the product support team, I’ll catch the technology next time around when it’s monkey proof. 

I have no issues with Roon other than occasional Roon Remote freezing, this on cheap tablet via wifi off whole house router. My Roon setup is on segregated audio streaming network (1gb), all hard wired, longest ethernet cable (all AQ Vodka) 1.5M. Roon runs on two streamers, custom build for Core, Sonore OpticalRendu for Endpoint, Core streamer powerful processor, enterprise RAM, Euphony OS (extremely optimized audio only OS) always using less than 1% on 7 cores, doesn't matter what Roon processes running. Also have more than 3K cd rips on NAS, streams SQ equal to rips. 

Also have more optimizations, these for sound quality rather than processor or network  and streamer speed, stability, reliability. My take is you need this level of optimization for use with large libraries via Roon. The proprietary music player apps work better since they're optimized for those streamers, Roon is universal app so one should expect variable speed, stability, reliability, Roon can't account for the extreme variability in streaming setups.

I've been using Roon for about 8 years and bought the lifetime subscription after the first year. Besides the great user interface, what I like about Roon is the ability to use it with a wide range of devices without having to change anything in my library, playlists, etc. And the ability to play the same or different content on multiple devices at the same time. 

I currently have nine endpoints connected to my Roon system - four Bluesound Node 2is, two RPi devices running Ropieee, an Auralic Vega G2, a Sonore Signature Rendu SE, and a Wiim Ultra. It's not unusual for me to be playing different content on 4-5 endpoints at the same time.

My library is a similar size as the OP's - slightly more artists and albums, slightly fewer tracks. 

I started out running the Roon server on my Windows desktop, then built a dedicated NUC i7 running ROCK. About three years ago, I bought an SGC i9 server which runs their propriety Linux OS. I switched to this because I wanted to experiment with HQPlayer. 

Overall, Roon has been very reliable. I have had some issues with my Sonore, but I think this is related to the optical Ethernet connection. All my other endpoints have been rock solid. 

The only other issue I've had is with the iOS apps. They work great when first launched, but if the device goes into standby and closes the connection to the Roon server, it often doesn't seem to reconnect automatically. Closing the app and relaunching always fixes the problem. If I'm doing an extended listening session, I'll set the app to stay on which prevents it from disconnecting. Tho iphone app seems to work a bit better than the iPad app, but the iPad app has some more features and is a bit easier to use. 

I have found that Roon has continued to improve since the Harmon acquisition. It has gotten a little snappier, and, if anything, sound quality has improved. 

My network setup isn't particularly complicated. Most of my devices are hardwired to a switch connected to my router. I think a couple of my Nodes are running wireless, but everything else uses a wired connection.