No more dropouts streaming Roon RAAT over gigabit ethernet

[mdconnelly]

Ever since Devialet started supporting Roon RAAT back in early 2019, I've never been able to cleanly stream hi-res music via RAAT on gigabit ethernet to my Expert Pro.  Even after the recent October update of new firmware and DOS from Devialet, I was still experiencing dropouts.

Well, that has now changed!   This past weekend, after acquiring a NUC 8i7beh and installing ROCK, I can proudly state that I am no longer experiencing dropouts.   Why this is true is a mystery.  I had been running RoonServer on Windows 10 Pro on fairly powerful hardware.    It worked great - except for hi-res music streaming via RAAT on gigabit ethernet.    After configuring the NUC, I simply replaced my Win PC with the NUC, moved the external USB drive containing my music over to the NUC and restored from my Roon backups.   It now works like a charm!   What a relief.

So, if you're reading this and experiencing the dropout issue, can you post what platform you're running Roon on?   I'd particularly be interested to know if any ROCK on NUC users are still experiencing this dropout issue.  

I haven't a clue why this works with ROCK on NUC but not with my Win10 PCs.   Perhaps it's a network issue with Win10, my router (an AT&T supplied Arris), and my Expert Pro.  Perhaps NUCs (or ROCK) are just less prone to whatever causes dropouts.  There are certainly things I could test - like installing Windows on my NUC, but for now, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the music.

FWIW, I have reported this to Devialet support and posted on the Roon forums.

[K4680]

Hello mdconnelly,  I had the same experience in 2019!


https://devialetchat.com/Thread-Roon-RAA...ight=K4680

#120 / 149 and the following.

About 1.5 years ago I installed Roon Rock on an old notebook to test it. Strangely enough, it still runs flawlessly, there never was a failure. Apparently the hardware also plays a role (use a friend you know, without problems).
Lenovo ThinkPad T430 / i5-3320M !!

[tategoi]

I have been experiencing dropouts while streaming dsf files when connecting the Devialet to fast ethernet port, but it is stable via gigabit ethernet.

Melco recommended 100 Mbps connection in S100 for audio players (Devialet) while Roon core and routers connected via Gigabit port.

[Soniclife]

I'm using a Win10 I7 desktop, and get the drop outs via gigabit, interesting that rock might not have the problem.

How big a partition would you need for Rock? I assume you get a trial period with Rock so you could start it up on a new partition (same hardware) point it at tidal, then test for drop outs, all without disturbing the existing Roon install. If we can prove that it's Windows and not hardware it puts the onus back on Roon to fix.

[thumb5]

But it might still be the device drivers for the network hardware, which will (obviously) be different between Windows and ROCK. Which would not be Roon's problem to fix, I'd say.

[mdconnelly]

It also seems to be quite true that this problem is fairly specific to Expert Pros. I have not heard of any other product-specific dropout issues with other Roon Ready endpoints. (not to say there aren't. I'm just not aware of any). I would like to think that if it is driver or Windows specific, either Roon or Devialet would have identified and rectified that. That's why I'm specifically curious to know if any Rock on NUC users are experiencing the dropouts.

[David A]

@mdconnelly ,

I never really had problems with dropouts from the "audio file is loading slowly" problem with RAAT. I could reliably trigger the problem by playing 24/192 files with a gigabit connection but I don't have any 24/192 files so I had to get Roon to upscale lower res files to 24/192 to get the problem and I prefer to have Roon stream files at their native resolution and let the Devialet do the upscaling so I never really had the problem in "real life" with my setup. In addition, in January this year I installed an Uptone Audio ETHERRegen so since then I've been using a 100 connection to the Devialet, not a gigabit connection.

On the other hand, since installing the new Devialet FW, I have had a number of times when I have experienced dropouts. On each occasion the cause was the Devialet disappearing from the list of Roon Ready output, even though the Devialet still appeared as an output for Roon's AIR. Obviously Roon continues to see my amp but, for some reason, the RAAT connection "breaks". I can't remember noticing this problem before the latest Devialet FW. It's possible that this problem started with the latest Roon update on 20 October, 2 weeks after the latest Devialet FW, but I think the first of this sort of dropout occurred for me before the Roon update but after the Devialet update. I wonder whether Devialet introduced some new problem in the latest FW which affects ethernet and RAAT on any speed connection.

Devialet's FW release notes for the latest FW only state that it provides improvements with RAAT, not that they have fixed the problem, so I don't think we can say it's fixed quite yet.

[David A]

@Soniclife ,

I'd love the issue to be a Roon problem. Roon have a history of regular FW updates which include bug fixes as well as a history of communicating well with users when problems arise and of fixing bugs quickly. Devialet on the other hand have a history of irregular FW updates, poor communication with users, and a slow response to software problems, especially streaming problems. People were regularly reporting problems with Devialet's AIR application prior to Roon incorporating AIR within Roon, and the number of people who reported after that happened that Roon made AIR work is actually quite large. On top of that, Devialet has pretty much acknowledged that this bug is their problem. Let's face it, Devialet has history of introducing software with streaming problems prior to their introduction of RAAT to the Devialet and the problems with RAAT are a further indication that Devialet's software team does not deliver its best work when it comes to streaming functions.

The gigabit speed problem with RAAT is a Devialet issue. It does not happen with other Roon Ready products, just with Devialet's, and when an issue at Roon's end has arisen with a Devialet device Roon have always publicly acknowledged it and fixed it promptly. They would have fixed this issue long ago if it were a problem at their end. Devialet still haven't totally fixed their AIR software for people who aren't running Roon so it probably shouldn't be a surprise that they haven't completely fixed this problem with RAAT yet.

[thumb5]

I think there's a danger in simply saying that the problem "belongs" to anyone.  The failure may only arise for certain combinations of hardware and software, and a handful of hardware manufacturers and software developers will have produced those components.  Only when the right intersection of components is put together will the problem result in a failure, so it can't truly be said to "belong" to any single hardware or software developer.  The fact that a failure is only reproducible when component X is used doesn't mean that it's caused by a defect in X: it may be a fault in component Y which is only manifested by some interaction with X.  You can only say the problem belongs to a specific component when the root cause is known, and even then it may not be a cut-and-dried decision.

This kind of problem needs to be investigated by finding a hardware and software set-up in which the failure is repeatable, and then painstakingly testing hypotheses to gather more information and eventually isolate the root cause one step at a time.  Trying to assign the problem to any specific hardware or software components without having concrete evidence (that's to say, well-defined test cases to disprove or add weight to those hypotheses) is not usually a route to successful resolution.

In principle that investigation could be done by anyone with the technical knowledge, a test system capable of reliably reproducing the problem, and the necessary hardware and software tools to gather information about what's going on.  But tracking the problem down may require expertise across many disciplines including some obvious ones: audio streaming, network protocols, etc. and some less obvious ones such as the details of various operating systems, network stack and device driver implementations, and the operation and peculiarities of specific network interface hardware.

[David A]

@thumb5 ,

I agree totally that this sort of problem arises in a system of components and software and that interactions cannot and should not be ignored but in this case it's impossible to avoid several facts:

- Roon have stated that the cause of the problem does not lie with their software;

- Devialet have not contradicted Roon;

- Devialet have accepted that it is a problem with their software and have been working to fix the problem.

For several months after Devialet released their FW update in February 2019 bringing RAAT connectivity and this problem first started being reported we had exhaustive discussion here on DevialetChat over several months about the issue and what the cause might be. That discussion came to an end after Roon stated that the problem wasn't in their software and Devialet acknowledged the problem as their responsibility. I think we can accept that both companies did the kind of investigations you suggest and came to the same conclusion, the cause of the problem resides somewhere in Devialet's firmware. I don't think there's any problem in stating that it's a Devialet problem if both companies in their statements on the issue and their actions in relation to the issue have accepted that the problem needs to be fixed by Devialet.