I don’t use Roon. I use the Melco N1A to serve music to the equivalent of a USB Dac (the Melco has an alternative option to act as a network player but I don’t use it). I do a lot of reclocking to the data after the Melco outputs it and am very happy with my system (my Melco N1A is the base model. They make others that cost six times as much and have things like better power supplies or an SSD instead of hard disc drives, but I don’t think I’d hear any difference in my system. Luckily the main man that distributes Melco in the UK lives not far away so I get excellent support from him).
I suspect that when a track was added to the file system something occurred such that the indexes to things like format got damaged (possibly die to a powerfailure) and something needed to repair the file system. The manufacturer doesn’t specify what happens in error situations, e.g. with Raid 1 what happens if a discrepancy between the drives is detected. The Melco clearly has housekeeping routines that run in the background so that adding a track looks quicker than it ougt to look. It could be that Roon does similar tricks and that by restarting it clears a looping process. It could also be that when playing a track that software calls use timeouts and if something doesn’t happen within a certain time it carries on regardless. Maybe that’s what we have both experienced, i.e. a file system problem that isn’t so serious that the software crashes or music doesn’t eventually play. I think it’d be worth backing up the file system and if possible doing a restore to a different set of discs to see what happens. It might fix a file system problem (or screw things completely).
After working with ROON support they have come to a shocking conclusion (at least for me) ROON cannot handle my database/Files.
I have 143000 FLAC files on my NAS. The Files are primarily from 2 bands (grateful Dead & Phish).
IT isnt the number of files its how i have them arranged/Stored.
I have a main folder (MUSIC) in that file I have 7 folders (each folder is devoted to a band: Phish, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia etc.
In those folders I have folders devoted to each year of the band . Then each year has folders for each concert in that year.
So Main Folder (Audio)>Band folders>Grateful Dead>1970, 1971, 1972 etc (years), then each year has individual concerts >then each concert folder has approx 25 FLAC files).
I know it’s a headful to try and understand by the written word but its a pretty basic way of organizing data.
ROON support now telling me ROON cant handle that way of organization. I’ve asked them to recommend a way to organize the files so ROON will work. I am waiting to hear back.
I’m pretty upset about this. I don’t recall reading anywhere in ROON advertisements that it can’t handle certain libraries. I wish I had known this before purchasing a Nucleus + for $2500.
I’ve been struggling with ROON and these issues from going on 2 years now. Despite appealing to ROON support numerous times this is the 1st time I’ve gotten a reason for my problems.
In my frustration I asked ROON to refund my cost for the NUCLEUS + and the monthly fees but of course that was unsuccessful. They say there is nothing wrong with the Nucleus + its how my library is organized.
Perhaps they can tell me how to organize my files differently but I’m beginning to realize that it’s likely I’ll be selling my Nucleus + soon and moving on from ROON.
I realize my library may be unique among ROON users (at least that’s what ROON says) but nowhere before purchase does ROON say it may not be able to handle some libraries.
I feel pretty screwed over. But such is life I guess.
Pretty unbelievable.
I guess in closing Ive been thinking about buying a streamer that has a good OS for music organization. Ive been thinking about buying one of the new Innuos Photon.
Anyone have any thought on Innuos music OS system?
Has anyone else noticed Roon searching takes a bit longer? My library is only like 700 albums and in the past few weeks it seems to take a while for a search to fill.
My Naim Core can stream to 12 players at once, but cannot handle an archive larger than 100k files ( I am nowhere near that). I think folder hierarchy does not matter as much as file sizes, file numbers and processing power of server and Roon core.
It’s a bummer cause I feel their interface is unrivaled
I’ll admit I’m a bit steamed that none of this would be apparent for a prospective buyer/user of ROON. All the advertising for a Nucleus+ triumphs it can handle over 100,000 tracks.
I’m double frustrated because for almost 3 yrs I’ve been trying to figure this out with Roon support and finally I get an answer.
So I’m likely gonna be stuck with a Nucleus I can’t use and the standard stale “we are sorry sir”
But maybe they can figure out an organization structure that will work
I fully understand that it’s different software but my Silent Angel Stream APP has no such issues with my current library
Perhaps that’s due to the fact it goes nowhere near the category abilities as Roon. Ive even maxed out my Nucleus+ memory but it didn’t help.
Apologies
I’m frustrated
But life is good.
No shortage of more devices out there to sink my $$$$ into
I’m not an Innuous user, but I’ve read quite favorable comments here and elsewhere about their software system. You might do best to search the forums first, and post another thread if you have any questions. Their upcoming Pulsar might be an interesting product, though their other products span a range of price points and might be exactly what you’re looking for.
I have to think that with an understanding of Roon’s library file system and their indexing, there likely is a way to optimize this. They have options in their settings for CPU load targets for indexing. I’m not home, so I can’t look it up, but if you have that set to High it might be a bottleneck with such a large library. I’m sure Support would’ve run through all this with you though.
Yes I have. I thought it may have something to do with the fact the search is now cloud-based.
Lots of others reporting the same. The folks at RoonLabs say it’s fixed now.
Mine went around 4 deep.
But then I put all the folders in 1 folder (so 1 deep)
But after about 11,000 tracks added my problems started again
Track chosen via shuffle then sometimes up to 2 minutes before music starts.
I thought putting all my folders/ concerts in a single file would do it but nope.
The Roon guy helping me said that wouldn’t work.
Ive asked him for further advise but haven’t heard back
Music not even on an external drive
I keep telling the guy it’s on my NAS
At least you appreciate it would be alot of work.
I can’t grasp what he’s suggesting to even say that.
I’m still in the stage that I’m stunned that the dominant digital music software company can’t handle 143000 FLAC files with an expensive piece of hardware and monthly subscription cost
I’m going to refrain from taking off on a anti ROON diatribe
I am at 68K and growing. I think you are at the leading edge of an inevitable problem for Roon. Time is against them. Just like any database that is constantly gathering info without purging, like an Electronic Healthcare Record system, the data keeps growing. Roon users after five, ten, fifteen years are going to have larger and larger file systems. Perhaps they hope that most users are simply adding virtual songs and albums from Tidal and Qobuz versus purchasing the digital file.
Admittedly I don’t have the real context of that discussion, but I’m wondering if he thinks you have a folder or sub-folder that, itself, holds thousands of songs.
I understand in your GDEAD folder, you have a LOT of songs. But there are sub-folders within that one, containing the songs, correct? How many songs do you have in the average folder? I’m thinking an average album is probably about a dozen songs. An average concert might be in the same range. If one album or one concert is in each sub-folder, this shouldn’t be horribly difficult to index, and reading data from an indexed database is rippin’ fast.
Of course displaying cover art for a huge number of songs could be part of the delay, but if it’s only trying to display that for a dozen songs at a time, it doesn’t seem like a technically significant challenge.
Edited to add: is there a lot of activity changing the content of the folders? Like are you frequently adding or deleting songs from a given sub-folder? I’d think the “norm” for that is they’re static, and that shouldn’t affect their indexing process, but if you’re frequently making changes and their indexing process is inefficient, it could could do something screwy like force a full re-index of the parent folder and all sub-folders.
If the average album is 10 songs, you’re looking at 3200 albums, which is my whole library. I bet by the time you’d have accumulated that many files, technology and processing power would have evolved to allow you more than 100k files
Aha, when we started this thread, I did not understand that the files are spread across so few artists. I am pushing 100K track files, but with rounded up 10K artists (lots of techno mix albums). Sorry if I missed it above, but what is your music tag editing process? I helped a friend before with a much smaller, but similar-problemed Dead and Phish collection. His tag editing was a mess, with artist names spelled many ways or sometimes not there etc, and lots and lots of variation throughout. Do you use a software like MP3tag? Can you post some screenshots like the attached across a number of albums for one artist and then for another?
