I installed a recently acquired Cisco 2960 into my system on Monday. All good.
Imported a new album into my Roon library last night and noticed today that the little activity circle is showing that of the 12 new tracks imported, 0 have been identified. I also note that i now get an error retrieving account information. This makes me think that something is blocking my Nucleus from accessing the Roonlabs servers. The only change has been to swap out the previous Netgear switch with the Cisco. The Cisco came to me factory reset and i verified this through the CLI. The Sonos connect and Melco server also connected to the 2960 are working fine and playing music etc via Roon is not an issue.
Before i swap in the Netgear switch to see if that sorts out the access issues (just to rule out any other problems) i’d appreciate any thoughts on what is going on and how i resolve it would be appreciated.
Ok this does appear to be related to the 2960 and i think i now know why. As it’s running un-managed the ports seem to take a while to come up when they detect a device connected (i think it’s to do with Spanning tree protection ?). So when i start the Nucleus, the port is not fully up and Roon is unsuccessful phoning home and doesn’t repeat the process when the port is fully available. Rebooting the Nucleus gets the same result as the port start up process repeats. To get around this, with the Nucleus running, I restarted the Roon server, the port is already up and so communication to Roon servers is completed. I’ve just done this and all seems fine - tracks identified and account information available again.
I take it i can just use the CLI to disable STP on the port the Nucleus is connected to to get around this in future ?
Hi James
How is the switch working now?
Do you think it would impriove the sound of my system, if I add it between 272 and router, without anything else on it?
Is it complicated for an untrained non-tekkie like me to set up and use?
I don’t want to have to endlessly fiddle with it and would hate to buy it if it incvreased tidal dropouts, which for me have been almost non-existnet to date.
thanks
Jim
I have the similiar combo ROCK and 2960. As the switch as STP active (spanning tree protocol) it takes about 30secs before the port is full active, This confuses the RoonOS and has exposed an issue in the os with dns so if you boot up it fails to connect to Tidal or Qobuz as its not got a internet connection right away due to the STP. I have a ticket with them and they hope to have it fixed in the next os release. If you log in to the nucleus web page and restart Roon server only it all should be ok. I noticed this as soon as I moved my core in to the rack with my atom, previously it was in the data cupboard.
It will be fine and plug and play as long as you buy one that is factory reset if buying 2nd hand. Cant say I heard any big improvement with fitting one myself though, but I got them cheap enough not to care.
just found that article you posted a while ago - v useful:
“Somewhat to our surprise, the Cisco switch initially disappointed, with a loss of timing and a sense of disorganisation, combined with a jittery roughness. And it didn’t improve when put on the low noise Naim part of the power feed system; nor did it benefit from mains filtering. But when we tried a few support foot options, we found that the sound character and quality could be transformed: clearly it was quite extraordinarily microphonic, as much as many a turntable. I had an assortment of classic Harmonix footers, oak cones, stainless steel domes, Michell points and felt discs to try.It turned out that many aspects of this Cisco switch’s sound, and its effects on my system, could be readily tuned, in this case while supported on a free glass shelf section of a Naim FRAIM stand. A panoply of effects were evident, such as in bass timing and attack, mid grain and/or transparency, treble grain and, perhaps most surprisingly, also in dynamics, rhythm, image focus and depth.Once optimised, I have to say that the gain in system performance was both substantial and satisfying over the long term. I have previously spent much more cash than this and ended up with less sonic benefit. This new arrangement is now able to reveal previously unsuspected quality differences between the short CAT cables used for various local connections, such as switch-to-NDS, switch-to-UnitiServe, switch-to-control line.”
This seems more credible than most hifi jounralists’ reviews because the writer has nothing to gain from the manufacturer for praising this Cisco product.
Interesting that he had to isolate it - and that he added it into his rack.
I had the same problem before. The solution. You must change the DNS in your router and your Nucleus for the Google public DNS and restart after. I choose 8.8.8.8. I have the same switch, with Roon Rock Nuc and a Naim Nova. Good Luck!
on the interfaces on the switch. This should only be on interfaces that connect to end devices - not interfaces that connect to other hubs and switches. I have it on the interface to my music server, pc and NDX 2.
The command disables the 30sec wait on port startup.
Basically it tells the switch that no spanning-tree messages will be seen on the port and it is safe to activate immediately.
I don’t see any reason to turn a switch off and on, just leave it running. If the problem is caused by simply connecting devices before the switch has completed its startup routine of POST checks, etc. then leaving it on will eliminate the chance of inadvertently messing up. The Catalyst switches do take a while to start up if you’re used to an unmanaged switch which takes no time at all.
It’s not turning the switch on and off Chris - if the port drops then it will take about 30 secs to come back up. If i power off the Nucleus, it exhibits the issue when powering back up. Not a problem with the other devices connected to it apart from the Nucleus. It’s not really an issue now i understand why it does it and for the moment it can be worked around with a server restart until Roon fix the bug or i could just set the switch up as AlanJ suggests.
@james_n update for ROCK is out and it appears to fix the DNS issues for me so it works with the Cisco after it connects without restarting Roon server manually. Give it a go and let me know.