[HOW-TO] Roon and RoonServer on Windows Server 2012 R2

[LewinskiH01]

Hello.

 

Need help figuring out what I'm doing wrong. I had this running until yesterday and after WS2012R2 reinstallation I'm having trouble.

 

System: Roon Server machine is a Win 10 PC, streaming over ethernet to the AudioPC that has WS2012R2 + Roon Bridge + AO 2.20 and connects directly to a USB DAC. I had it running with WS2012R2 in minimal server mode, but after reinstallation it's not working anymore. 

 

Currently: With WS2012R2 running with a GUI, Roon Server sees RoonBridge OK and plays without problem. When I turn WS to minimal server mode, Roon Server doesn't see RoonBridge anymore. The first time I ran AO today it asked if I wanted to enable Roon support (as in page 34 of manual) and I said yes, but still didn't work. I went back to GUI and Roon worked OK, then back to minimal server and ran AO again and it didn't ask if I wanted to enable Roon support. Did the cycle again and still the same situation. So right now I can play music to Roon Bridge while in GUI mode...but the sound quality is not the same.

 

Any pointers of what I'm doing wrong?

 

Thank you in advance!

[LewinskiH01]

2 hours ago, AudioPhil said:

Hey LewinskiH01

 

Did you run AO again and said also yes to "Install Kernel-Streaming support" after you switched into minimal-server mode? Can you play music with another player, let's say Foobar2000 or something similar which is easy to install just for a test?

 

Best,

AidioPhil

 

 

Hello! Yes, I did run AO again and also said yes to KS after I switched into minimal server mode. The three times I tried this. I don't have another player installed in that PC. Should I install something? Or can I play sounds from an existing app?

 

Regards,

Horacio

[LewinskiH01]

2 minutes ago, AudioPhil said:

Hello

 

One you are familiar with would be ideal. But before, please also check if the Windows Audio Service is running.

 

Best,

AudioPhil

 

How do I check that? I'm assuming tI should urn into minimal server mode and check if Windows Audio Service is working, right? Because it does work while in GUI since Roon Bridge plays music.

 

Regards,

Horacio

[LewinskiH01]

Confirmed! Both are running.

[LewinskiH01]

On 3/30/2020 at 5:20 PM, LewinskiH01 said:

Confirmed! Both are running.

 

Seems AudioPhil isn't available. Might someone else have thoughts on why this might not be working?

 

Thank you!

[LewinskiH01]

On 4/3/2020 at 3:03 PM, LewinskiH01 said:

 

Seems AudioPhil isn't available. Might someone else have thoughts on why this might not be working?

 

Thank you!

 

FWIW, I tried running AO on GUI mode and RoonBridge/Roon works perfectly. It's something to do with minimal server mode. What's most puzzling is it was working on minimal-server before I did the Windows reinstall, so there has to be something in the setup. Oh well.

[LewinskiH01]

On 4/9/2020 at 9:22 AM, AudioPhil said:

Sorry for the delay! At least your screenhot looks very good!

 

Can you try with another player you are familiar with installing and making it work in Core mode? My impression is that Audio stack wise everything is working fine. That's why i'd like to check using another player.

 

Thanks for the follow up. I went on to explore the update log for AO 3.00 and realized WS2012R2 was rather outdated, and went ahead and installed WS2019. So won't be solving for the above anymore. I am likely to show up in another thread asking for other help, though ☺️

 

Hope you are safe and doing well.