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EPG / XMLTV viewer

Load an XMLTV guide and inspect what's actually in it — channel count, programme count, schedules, and the tvg-id values your playlist has to match.

Fixing an empty TV guide

An empty guide almost never means your streams are broken. The EPG is a completely separate file from the playlist, and the two are joined by one value: the channel id.

In your M3U, each channel carries a tvg-id attribute:

#EXTINF:-1 tvg-id="BBCOne.uk" ...,BBC One

In the XMLTV guide, the matching channel is declared like this:

<channel id="BBCOne.uk">

Those two strings must match exactly, including capitalisation. If your playlist says bbc1 and the guide says BBCOne.uk, no player will connect them.

The fix, in order

  1. Load your guide above and note the ids it publishes.
  2. Open your M3U in a text editor and compare its tvg-id values.
  3. If they differ, either ask your provider for a matching guide, or use your player’s channel-mapping feature — TiviMate and OTT Navigator both allow manual remapping.
  4. Force an EPG refresh in the app afterwards. Most cache aggressively.

Other common causes

  • Guide still loading. A large XMLTV file can take several minutes to parse on a Firestick. Wait before troubleshooting.
  • Wrong URL. The EPG URL is separate from the M3U URL. Paste it here first to confirm it returns XML.
  • Timezone offset. If programmes appear at the wrong time, the guide is publishing UTC and your player isn’t converting. Set the offset in the app’s EPG settings.

More diagnosis in the IPTV troubleshooting guide.

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EPG viewer FAQ

Why is my IPTV guide empty?

The most common cause is a mismatch between the tvg-id values in your M3U playlist and the channel ids in your XMLTV guide. If they don't match exactly, the player has no way to link a channel to its schedule. Load your guide here to see the exact ids it publishes, then compare them with your playlist.

What is an XMLTV file?

XMLTV is the standard format for electronic programme guide data. It is an XML document containing <channel> elements that define each channel's id and name, and <programme> elements giving the title, description, start and stop time for every broadcast. Nearly every IPTV provider supplies one alongside the M3U playlist.

Can this viewer open .xml.gz files?

Not directly — most XMLTV guides are distributed gzipped to save bandwidth, and browsers cannot always decompress them transparently. Download the .xml.gz, decompress it locally with 7-Zip, WinRAR or the built-in macOS archive tool, then upload the resulting .xml file.

How often should the EPG update?

Most providers regenerate their guide every 6 to 24 hours, typically carrying 3 to 7 days of listings. If your guide is stale, force a refresh in your player's EPG settings — many apps cache aggressively and won't re-fetch on their own.