[PLUGIN] Volroon - Roon Bridge plugin with metadata and control

I’ve been working on a modified version of the Roon Bridge plugin as created by Christopher Rieke a few years back. I have working metadata, player, seek controls and album art.

The plugin is available in the beta channel in the plugin store. You can turn on beta plugins by visiting your Volumio device’s hostname with a “/dev” at the end. I.e. http://volumio/dev

Volroon
Update: Because the RoonBridge service is completely separate from Volumio I’ve had to “get clever” with some of the logic to detect what’s happening. But it’s all working at the moment. The biggest issue is if you start playing Roon while something is already playing on Volumio. The state is cleared correctly but Roon gives you a very brief message about not being to capture the audio device. Wait a few seconds and it works again when you hit play. There is no work around for this at moment because RoonBridge will only deal directly with the audio hardware…which is also what Volumio wants (for obvious reasons). There would probably need to be some licensing talks between the two to work something else out.

Todo:

  • It is possible to fill the Volumio play queue with whatever is in the Roon queue. I will do that at some point.
  • Work out a better way to sync the playback timer when you perform a seek to a different position in the track. Volumio seems to run it’s own timer that somehow differs from the seek property in the statemachine.

Known issues:

  • None at the moment.
3 Likes

Good stuff, but you might want to edit the link as it points to nowhere…

While I wait for the mods to sort this thread out: the name of this plugin has changed. It is now called volroon and the link to it is https://github.com/charliesjc/volroon

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Title changed :wink:

Thank you @balbuze, would you mind updating the link in the OP too?

I did, but I think you can edit your own post :wink:

Will you enable this plugin for x86 as well?
I’ll add myself as a tester for armv7 (Odroid N2+) and x86.
Please PM me.

Thanks. Nope, I can’t edit it. No idea why. I did the first time and since then the option for me to edit is gone.

Jak pobrać paczkę zip poprzez SSH. Pobrałem pojedyncze pliki i umieściłem w folderze volroon na /home/volumio/volroon ale to nie działa.

why not just write “How to download a zip package via SSH. I downloaded individual files and put them in the volroon folder at / home / volumio / volroon but it doesn’t work”.

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can you help me?

I’ve updated the first post with some instructions on how to install this if you don’t want to wait for the beta to be available in store. I want to make one small update to fix the problem where I2S dacs won’t show metadata, but my SD card crashed yesterday as soon as I changed from USB to I2S so I need to get a new one :joy: then I will ask for the plugin to get the beta go-ahead.

I’m a beginner in Volumio, so forgive me for some stupid questions. When do you plan to release a stable version? How do I have a DAC with a USB input.

Question:
Is the 'now playing" display customizable like the native volumio display?
IOW, can I use this plugin alongside other plugins that change the display output? (mainly interested in the 'contemporary optimization" plugin.)

thanks

Well, all it does is pull the metadata from Roon and populate the relevant state fields in Volumio. So as long as whatever you have in mind makes use of those built-in fields…then yes.

Hi, charliesjc.

Thanks foe rhe great job. That’s the most wanted plugin for me.
But I cant make it showing any metadata. I see my USB DAC in Roon and I even can play the music, but the metadata is not shown.
On Plugin setting screen (Vitals) first three inputs are “Not Detected” (Core, Host, Zone). The forth one (Roon output device) shows my USB DAC and I See it in Roon.

I also had a Roon Bridge plugin that is disabled.

How could I debug this behavior?

Hi, @Al_Esquire,
Thanks for trying my plugin. First thing that it could be: Go into Roon → Settings → Extensions and see if my plugin is authorized or not. It shouldn’t need to be, but I have noticed it sometimes requiring that in Roon…lately. Let me know if that changes anything for you.

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Hi, charliesjc.

Didn’t know about this option.

Now it works like a charm! Definitely the best Volumio plugin ever.

Even more it works together with Contemporary UI plugin, with GPIO buttons and with IR remote. And also HDMI display.

1 Like

Really good work! Got it running in 5 minutes (the old roon bridge gave me some errors), and displaying to the TV what I’m listening too. Great work!

Could you by any chance make the data shown, configurable? Having moving text on the screen while I’m listening to music (at least sometimes) isn’t something I appreciate.

Another question, I’m not shure to pass the music though HDMI or COAX. I thought with my amplifier HDMI would be better but can see it only goes up to 16 bits (coax 24bits).

With RoPieee I could only use COAX. I could have sworn that all the inputs on the PI appeared on Roon, but alas, I have to choose between HDMI or I2S

Really great work! Hope the plugin carries on improving with new features!

Thanks! Unfortunately changing something like the way text scrolls etc. would be outside the scope of my plugin. All it does is populate the relevant fields and it’s entirely up to your Volumio theme how it gets displayed. Maybe someone else wants to sort that out with a UI mod?

I don’t know where to start regarding your coax/HDMI issue. That seems to me like a configuration problem. I can see everything in Volumio and in Roon on my RPi4.