Roon, Expert Pro, and a major issue with RAAT

[K4680]

Hello, slowly I think that everything is possible.
A friend called me on the weekend that he suddenly had problems (1 year without problems) with Roon RAAT.
He described the following errors: Runs normally for some time, then charging problems and stuttering, HiRes Flacs stuttering or not charging.  Since we are not far away I said to him take your devialet and the nucleus and come to me.  We wired everything up and started with HiRes Flacs, no problems.  Everything we tested ran normally, after 3 hours we stopped the test.  What can cause the error?  I then suspected his network / router, so I packed my router (FB 6591) and a switch and we drove to his home.  I now connected the switch and router to the devialet and the nucleus, and lo and behold, the same error as before with his devices, now also occurred with my devicesäten.  After a long debate, he suddenly said that he had asked his Internet provider to increase the bandwidth from 200 M / bit to 500 M / bit !!  Are there timing problems with the ISP distribution points, or more workloads in the segments (500 M/Bit)? Everything else in the network telephone, TV, Internet, mail without problems.
Maybe that's why some of us have no problems with RAAT!
At the moment at a loss!

Short info: The ISP reacted quickly and was the first to notice significant differences in the ping times.  From 40 msec.  up to 750 msec. !!  The search continues

Addendum, RAAT interference on the 1GB cable connection!
ISP reacted promptly and fixed the problem.
Error:
1. Shielding on a cable from the house connection amplifier, almost torn off.
2. Transfer amplifier defective, delivered too high level.
3. New house connection amplifier installed, level set exactly (ping time 35 ms)
4. According to the technician, a segment amplifier was faulty in a distribution station!

After 2 days Roon-RAAT with Devialet runs without any problems !!!

Apparently, this time Devialet are not the bad guys!

[mdconnelly]

@Flashman

I set my Expert Pro with a static IP via the online Devialet Configurator/SD Card as follows:  

DCHP off
fixed IP set
network mask 255.255.255.0
gateway set to my router IP
DNS - left blank

note: wifi off

Didn't need to change anything on my router - it automatically excluded the fixed IP I specified from the DHCP pool.   The router sees it as static.

[thumb5]

Sounds to me (from afar) as though there may be several different problems here, one of which is the Roon-Gigabit problem that can be worked around by connection to a 100 Mbps switch, and others which may have different causes but result in similar symptoms and/or mask the effects of the Gigabit problem.

[David A]

I agree with Ian.

It seems to me that people are calling the behaviour (the stuttering and stopping of playback, especially with high res files) as the problem. That isn't the problem, that's the symptoms which tell us that there is a problem. The problem is whatever is causing the symptoms.

As for the symptoms, there are a number of things which can cause them. For example, the loss of the first second or so of playback *CAN* be due to a DAC taking a bit of time to adjust to a change in resolution and Roon has a setting to correct that by providing a delay when resolution changes. There's more than one cause which can generate the sort of symptoms we're talking about.

We definitely do have a problem with RAAT and gigabit connections, it's been confirmed by both Roon and Devialet and Devialet have now said they're testing a fix (at last) but one of the features of this problem, right from the start, is that some people experienced it more severely and/or frequently than others. Why? If it were just a simple bug then it should have affected everyone equally. I think that while the problem has a root cause which is common, there is probably something else involved which accounts for the differences in severity and frequency reported, something which can exacerbate the symptoms. That factor probably has something to do with our individual network setups because provided Roon is running without problems and our respective Devialets are all the same when it comes to the bug, the only thing that can contribute to the difference has to lie between Roon and the Devialet and what's between them is our networks.

I'm also using an EtherREGEN and I've now had playback stop on 3 occasions with Roon dropping my Roon Ready connection which disappears from my list of possible endpoints in Roon's audio settings while Roon still offers me a connection via AIR. While I solved it the first time by mucking about and eventually rebooting my 140, and then my Roon Nucleus+, neither of which worked, and then finally rebooting the EtherREGEN, what I've found since then with the 2 subsequent incidents is that rebooting the EtherREGEN solves the problem. I don't know what's causing the issue and I reported the first incident to Alex Crespi at Uptone Audio who had received no other reports at that stage. I have no idea of what's going on but I wonder whether the problem is in some way associated with or caused by the RAAT/gigabit bug, even though I'm using the EtherREGEN's 100T port to connect to my 140, because the one thing this has in common with the RAAT/gigabit issue is that it affects RAAT but does not affect AIR.

I haven't tried assigning a fixed address to the 140 as yet but, given that we're apparently close to seeing a firmware release to fix the RAAT/gigabit bug I'll probably hold off and see what that fix does when it's released and then consider a fixed address if that doesn't work. As problems go, this loss of the RAAT connection is minor since it occurs at intervals of 2 or 3 weeks and is easily and quickly fixed so it's a minor annoyance for me. Whatever the cause is, I'm also not seeing any reports from other EtherREGEN users on the Uptone Audio forum at AudiophileStyle soI'm inclined to think that it's a Devialet issue rather than an EtherREGEN issue, especially when the Devialet has an acknowledged issue with how it handles RAAT connections.

I think it's going to be very interesting to see how the Devialet bug fix works for people. Given the variability in reports that we've seen, is the fix going to resolve all issues for ausers experiencing the problem or is it only going to fix some issues, and is it going to fix things for some people and not for others? Has everyone been experiencing the same problem or have some people got a different problem with similar issues? Hopefully we'll get some answers soon, and hopefully those answers will be the answers everyone is waiting for.

[Pim]

I think it's going to be very interesting to see how the Devialet bug fix works for people. Given the variability in reports that we've seen, is the fix going to resolve all issues for ausers experiencing the problem or is it only going to fix some issues, and is it going to fix things for some people and not for others? Has everyone been experiencing the same problem or have some people got a different problem with similar issues? Hopefully we'll get some answers soon, and hopefully those answers will be the answers everyone is waiting for.

  Better keep a back up of our old firmware and configurations just in case.

[David A]

I think it's going to be very interesting to see how the Devialet bug fix works for people. Given the variability in reports that we've seen, is the fix going to resolve all issues for ausers experiencing the problem or is it only going to fix some issues, and is it going to fix things for some people and not for others? Has everyone been experiencing the same problem or have some people got a different problem with similar issues? Hopefully we'll get some answers soon, and hopefully those answers will be the answers everyone is waiting for.

  Better keep a back up of our old firmware and configurations just in case.

I always do. So far I've never needed to use it but basically I keep a copy of my config files and each firmware release on my computer as a matter of course.

Another hint for those who don't believe in belt and braces: keep some spare SD cards. The Devialet comes with a 2 GB card and it will read cards up to 8 GB in size. Those are pretty small cards these day. They're getting hard to find and they're only going to get harder to find. The card that came with my Devialet is now dead, unreadable. It can happen. Make sure you have some spare cards because if you only have 1 card and it dies you may find yourself looking in several stores before you can find an 8 GB card or smaller these days. If you actually try to find some 2 GB cards then you're really going to have to look.

[K4680]

I think it's going to be very interesting to see how the Devialet bug fix works for people. Given the variability in reports that we've seen, is the fix going to resolve all issues for ausers experiencing the problem or is it only going to fix some issues, and is it going to fix things for some people and not for others? Has everyone been experiencing the same problem or have some people got a different problem with similar issues? Hopefully we'll get some answers soon, and hopefully those answers will be the answers everyone is waiting for.

  Better keep a back up of our old firmware and configurations just in case.

I always do. So far I've never needed to use it but basically I keep a copy of my config files and each firmware release on my computer as a matter of course.

Another hint for those who don't believe in belt and braces: keep some spare SD cards. The Devialet comes with a 2 GB card and it will read cards up to 8 GB in size. Those are pretty small cards these day. They're getting hard to find and they're only going to get harder to find. The card that came with my Devialet is now dead, unreadable. It can happen. Make sure you have some spare cards because if you only have 1 card and it dies you may find yourself looking in several stores before you can find an 8 GB card or smaller these days. If you actually try to find some 2 GB cards then you're really going to have to look.

Hello, there is still a large selection on Amazon.  I only ordered 6 pieces (2 and 4 GB) last week.  Without problems!

[David A]

@K4680 ,

Yes, they're available from places like Amazon but if you only have 1 at the time and something goes wrong, or both of your cards get rejected by your amp all of a sudden and  you go out looking in the local stores to get one in a hurry rather than waiting for one to arrive from an on-line store, you're likely to have a lot less success.

Both of my cards stopped being recognised. My problem was an SD card slot in the amp which had failed. When neither of my cards worked, I went looking for a new card so I could test whether it was my existing cards which were the problem or something else. I couldn't find an 8 GB card or smaller anywhere locally. If you need another card in a hurry and you don't have one on hand you won't think that Amazon is a good place to shop  when you have to wait a week or so for a card to arrive. Using Factory Config is nowhere near as convenient as using a config file and you can't use SAM except from a config file on an SD card.

[K4680]

@K4680 ,

Yes, they're available from places like Amazon but if you only have 1 at the time and something goes wrong, or both of your cards get rejected by your amp all of a sudden and  you go out looking in the local stores to get one in a hurry rather than waiting for one to arrive from an on-line store, you're likely to have a lot less success.

Both of my cards stopped being recognised. My problem was an SD card slot in the amp which had failed. When neither of my cards worked, I went looking for a new card so I could test whether it was my existing cards which were the problem or something else. I couldn't find an 8 GB card or smaller anywhere locally. If you need another card in a hurry and you don't have one on hand you won't think that Amazon is a good place to shop  when you have to wait a week or so for a card to arrive. Using Factory Config is nowhere near as convenient as using a config file and you can't use SAM except from a config file on an SD card.

Hi, exactly for this reason (local availability) I have ordered several SD cards!