Qobuz my weekly Q

I would welcome a Qobuz Connect feature with the Naim streamers (I have NDX2, Atom, Mu-so 2, and Qb2). I use Roon but it costs money and has issues with iPad OS (crashes, no support for the native OS scrolling with Magic Keyboard). If there were a Qobuz Connect feature I could see abandoning Roon for it.

Clare wrote several times that this would be one to ask Qobuz for, because they have to develop the technology.

(Personally I am puzzled how you could drop Roon for the poor Qobuz app, but I suppose depends on how you use Roon)

Making it a playlist to play on the Naim app only takes a minuteā€¦

Roon is buggy and flakey on the iPad, and it costs extra money. My renewal comes up about the time I retire next year, so Iā€™d be happy to forgo paying for it again if I donā€™t need to. They need to fix some problems for it to be more compelling for me.

OK, not good, I never had any issues. Of course if you donā€™t use the features that are unique to Roon, thereā€™s no point paying for it. (Personally, I couldnā€™t live without it because none of the features that I use are available in the Qobuz, Tidal, or Naim apps)

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FWIW Iā€™ve never had any iPad problems with Roon eitherā€¦

Itā€™s certainly not unique though on the Roon forum. I always wonder if itā€™s not something wrong with the individual device. I use an Android tablet and just earlier today read a complaint on the Roon forum by a user with the exact same tablet complaining about constant crashes - but I didnā€™t have a single one in nearly one year, and Iā€™ve been using it pretty extensively and daily.

It crashes constantly on iPad OS (and iOS I think). This is a known issue, and has been a problem with iPad OS 13, 14 and 15. Roon has turned logging on in my account, but so far they never followed up. But there is a discussion on the Roon forums about it. If you donā€™t have the crashing issue, consider yourself lucky.

I use my iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard. Roon scrolling from the touchpad doesnā€™t work at all. This is a feature that is built-in to iPad OS but Roon acts like itā€™s a feature request: Apple already implemented the feature. Roon broke it for their app. It works correctly everywhere else. Thereā€™s a forum discussion at Roon Community about this too.

Roon never remembers my preferences. I tell it to filter on Jazz and Classical music in Qobuz, but everytime I bring it upo itā€™s back to showing everything. I order my library by date added, but it keeps changing that back to alphabetical. And so on and and so on.

So I donā€™t know why Iā€™m paying for the annoyance if UX features I care about are broken. And then thereā€™s the crashing all the time.

Mine has continued crashing through three different iPad OS versions and across two different iPad devices. Everything else on my iPad works just fine without issue. Just because it doesnā€™t happen to you doesnā€™t mean it isnā€™t a legitimate issue, so donā€™t assume itā€™s user error or a device problem. Itā€™s very often the case that real bugs in software affect only a fraction of the user community, but they are still legitimate software defects. I know this from direct experience as a software engineer.

Roon on my IPad and Iphone crashes almost daily (OS14 and OS15). It is consistent along all OS updates. I wonder when it will be fixed. I need to control 4 devices so using the Naim app only would not replace it. Of course Roon has many other advantages and in many use cases it is the only software you can use to manage your music efficiently. The crash does not affect music playback so it tends to be tolerable even if it is of course annoying.

Sounds massively frustrating for you and @JosquinDesPrez .

I have no idea why it works fine here, from 2 iPhones, an occasional Android, an old iPad and a newish iPadPro (without ext. keyboard).

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I did none of this, quite the opposite in fact.
And if itā€™s crashing it is NEVER a user error

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I was just reacting to the comment, ā€œalways wonder if itā€™s not something wrong with the individual device.ā€ I think more likely, itā€™s a problem where some devices are configured in a certain way that collides with the way the Roon app does things, resulting in defect. Network configuration is the prime suspect I believe.

As far as I know (and I could be wrong), Roon doesnā€™t use standard Apple toolchains for developing the iOS/MacOS versions of the apps; rather, some cross-platform framework that translates a common code base to each of the various OS platforms. There are definite trade-offs to doing that, and issues like the ones I have are not surprising. The advantage for Roon is they can develop for all the platforms together, saving money on development costs, and making them consistent across the board.

This is what I meant, an individual device being somehow different. Or maybe the usage patterns being subtly different. Probably wasnā€™t clear from my short version. Of course unless the device is really broken, itā€™s the appā€™s job to deal with it without crashing.

But itā€™s also worth mentioning that even if some users/ devices are somehow affected, in all likelihood most work fine. Of course thatā€™s no consolation if one is affected by such an annoying issue.

Yeah, I see. Thatā€™s pretty much a given, universally. Effectively, every device is somehow configured and used differently from every other one. Thatā€™s why bugs often manifest for some, but not other users. The ones affecting the smallest number of users can be the most difficult to reproduce. Bugs that canā€™t be reproduced by development teams can be a seemingly intractable problems to resolve. There are some that donā€™t understand this. Thatā€™s when you see comments to the effect of, ā€œyou must be doing something wrong because it works for meā€ and thatā€™s just not how things work in the real world.

Fully agree. My day job is software support manager and a crash or other critical issue is never considered the userā€™s fault. Although sometimes it can be next to impossible to track it down, depending on the environment, infrequency, etc.
But if you had it on new ipads, it should be possible by careful monitoring. Of course itā€™s impossible to force users to do that, like not changing the configuration or not installing anything else at first

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What I find very strange is that you donā€™t have one issue like crashes or a flaky scrolling support, but others that seem completely independent and affect fundamental features like focus not sticking

Back in early August I got the following message from Roon.

I just wanted to let you know that weā€™re looking into the data you provided and have also enabled diagnostics on your account so we can take a closer look. Weā€™ll be in touch soon with next steps.

Crickets ever sinceā€¦

I would follow up with them and possibly call them :slight_smile: Though yes, annoying

I even deleted the Roon app from my iPad, including the app data, and reinstalled it fresh. It doesnā€™t make a difference. I use a 2021 iPad Pro 12.9 that has run with iPad OS 14 and 15. Before that I had a 3rd gen iPad Pro 11. Same problems.