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I am having possibly the weirdest problem I have ever experienced regarding compuer based audio


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I recently built a CAPS server, closely following Chris's build spec for spec. The differences are small hardware wise, software wise I am using Ubuntu and HQPlayer. Music is stored locally, and right now I am using the ethernet network connection on the motherboard. The problem is that occasionally, Roon Server will just stop playing music, whether streaming from the net via Qobuz or from the local HDD inside the machine. Grabbing my iPad and pressing play gets it playing again, immediately. At the same time there appears to be no interruption of internet connectivity to any devices on the network.

 

Where do I even begin looking for the cause of this so I can fix it?

No electron left behind.

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I have had on very rare occasions stoppages with Roon > HQP Desktop. Just hit Play button in Roon starts the music again. Also had incidents requiring a reboot of music server.

 

What I see more often are brief dropouts (1-2 seconds) that I have not been able to find the source. I can go weeks without any dropouts and then have 2 in one evening. My streaming TV (YouTube TV) comes off the same switch as my music system and I never have a problem with TV streaming even with 4K material.

 

I realize this doesn't address your question but I am interested to hear from others on this topic.

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52 minutes ago, ericuco said:

I have had on very rare occasions stoppages with Roon > HQP Desktop. Just hit Play button in Roon starts the music again. Also had incidents requiring a reboot of music server.

 

What I see more often are brief dropouts (1-2 seconds) that I have not been able to find the source. I can go weeks without any dropouts and then have 2 in one evening. My streaming TV (YouTube TV) comes off the same switch as my music system and I never have a problem with TV streaming even with 4K material.

 

I realize this doesn't address your question but I am interested to hear from others on this topic.

 

What hardware are you running on? I was previously using a Mac Mini and this never happened.

 

edit: Nevermind, I see it in your sig.

No electron left behind.

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1 hour ago, ericuco said:

I have had on very rare occasions stoppages with Roon > HQP Desktop. Just hit Play button in Roon starts the music again.


I admit, this do happen to me as well. HQPlayer embedded in SonicTransporter. I don’t have a problem with it. I think it’s during Roon radio, as I use it a lot. 

I may skip HQPlayer for a while and see if it’s happen again. 
 

 

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2 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I recently built a CAPS server, closely following Chris's build spec for spec. The differences are small hardware wise, software wise I am using Ubuntu and HQPlayer. Music is stored locally, and right now I am using the ethernet network connection on the motherboard. The problem is that occasionally, Roon Server will just stop playing music, whether streaming from the net via Qobuz or from the local HDD inside the machine. Grabbing my iPad and pressing play gets it playing again, immediately. At the same time there appears to be no interruption of internet connectivity to any devices on the network.

 

Where do I even begin looking for the cause of this so I can fix it?

You may want to reseat/swap your USB cable to see if the problem disappears. If you have any powered devices in the USB path make sure their power connections

are tightly seated.

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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7 minutes ago, davide256 said:

You may want to reseat/swap your USB cable to see if the problem disappears. If you have any powered devices in the USB path make sure their power connections

are tightly seated.

 

The USB cable I have in the system goes from the Raspberry Pi4 to the Yggy, or from a Sonore Signature Rendu SE Optical to the DAC. Everything else goes over the network, but I will try that and your other suggestion.

 

No electron left behind.

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Another oddity I have seen with one album is that music stops before the last track starts. The track is in the queue so baffled why it isn’t played. I can hit play button and the last track plays.

 

This album used to play fine for years but within the last few months this issue began and is repeatable. The file is located on my NAS and perhaps it got “corrupted”. (All of my music files are stored on NAS so no local vs streaming.)

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2 minutes ago, ericuco said:

Another oddity I have seen with one album is that music stops before the last track starts. The track is in the queue so baffled why it isn’t played. I can hit play button and the last track plays.

 

This album used to play fine for years but within the last few months this issue began and is repeatable. The file is located on my NAS and perhaps it got “corrupted”. (All of my music files are stored on NAS so no local vs streaming.)

 

That is indeed very odd.

No electron left behind.

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25 minutes ago, R1200CL said:


I admit, this do happen to me as well. HQPlayer embedded in SonicTransporter. I don’t have a problem with it. I think it’s during Roon radio, as I use it a lot. 

I may skip HQPlayer for a while and see if it’s happen again. 
 

 

 

I notice it happening more often when I am listening to an internet radio station than when I am streaming from Qobuz or local files.

No electron left behind.

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3 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

I notice it happening more often when I am listening to an internet radio station than when I am streaming from Qobuz or local files.

Sounds like a latency/buffer optimization  problem as Internet radio will be more problematic for bandwidth/latency than Qobuz or local files.

 

If it were a DAC synch issue, it would be random dropouts independent of source, so I don't think intermittent USB  connectivity dropout is going to be the cause now.

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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For a start, look into how your router shares bandwidth. A lot of ISP routers are very primitive in this regard, sharing based on equal shares between all devices. 

Some routers assign a priority to connected devices, so it can also be that your audio system has a lower priority....so while the network isn’t down, the connection to your streamer is suspended while the router serves other devices. 

 

If you want interruption-free music, you typically need to ensure that your audio system has priority over all other network connected devices. Ideally you need a router that can server multiple devices simultaneously and allow you to set individual device priorities.

 

Personally I use a tri-band TPLink Archer AC5400 where I can dedicate a complete 5GHz wi-fi band to my audio system. This ensures maximum bandwidth (no interruptions) and minimal network activity (less network traffic, CPU load and  therefore less noise and better SQ) 

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I have a full ubiquiti system here from a Dream Machine Pro to wired and wireless access points. All parts of the audio system are hard wired except the controlling iPad of course.  I’ll check through all the various network settings again and see if there’s anything of interest. 

No electron left behind.

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3 hours ago, davide256 said:

Sounds like a latency/buffer optimization  problem as Internet radio will be more problematic for bandwidth/latency than Qobuz or local files.

 

If it were a DAC synch issue, it would be random dropouts independent of source, so I don't think intermittent USB  connectivity dropout is going to be the cause now.


I am going to try increasing the playback buffer in Roon server and see if that helps. 

No electron left behind.

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3 hours ago, billg said:

A couple more ideas...

Have you set static ip addresses for your devices? That can improve network stability/reliability.

Do you use jplay? If you changed jplay settings to a higher daclink that might also cause problems. 

 

I have set static IPs today, so far not a hiccup and I have been playing MPR Classical 24 internet radio all day.

I do not use jPlay.

No electron left behind.

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If only it was that simple.  Granted things would be spread thinner with a handful of phones and computers all on your home network. 

 

Think of how the banks and stockbrokers are lined up in NYC.  .0001 seconds slower internet connection from the EU than the next guy closer to the front of the line is big money.  Or maybe the .99 of a cent swindle where a guy figured out a way to collect all those not quite a penny into a central account.

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47 minutes ago, rando said:

If only it was that simple.  Granted things would be spread thinner with a handful of phones and computers all on your home network. 

 

Think of how the banks and stockbrokers are lined up in NYC.  .0001 seconds slower internet connection from the EU than the next guy closer to the front of the line is big money.  Or maybe the .99 of a cent swindle where a guy figured out a way to collect all those not quite a penny into a central account.

 

My Brother in Law and my Brother both worked on Wall Street for a period of time. I am well aware. If you want to read about it, read The Quants.

No electron left behind.

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