[atharmian]

Nope. You can merge multiple local or remote playlists. That was main intention. Addon support was something extra I added later on. Sorry if I missed your question.

All's well that ends well !
So essentially IPTV Merge is doing better than what Playlist Loader used to do and what multi instance PVR Simple is supposed to provide ! ( Addons with playlist+ epg updates and playlists integration.)

Now do you have any insights on my above question re: YouTube format?
I can't find any answers. Surprised Kodi wiki has no info.

[matthuisman]

Have you tried plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=$VIDEOID ?

[atharmian]

Have you tried plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=$VIDEOID ?

I can always go to the nominal videoid link, but the /live ensures that you always get the first live stream from the channel. In my experience the videoid's keep changing.

[matthuisman]

Best to ask in the YT thread. I don't use it personally. But any plugin url should be fine to use in a playlist where an http url would normally go

[Paul608085]

I'm still having problems, even since updating IPTV Merge to v0.23.5 and IPTV Simple Client to v20.8.1

I run Kodi v20 on a Sony Android TV and a Firestick 4K Max, and both are having the same issues.

I think that I have narrowed down the cause to this: in IPTV Simple Client, under "General", "EPG" and "Channel Logos", I have changed "Location" from "Remote Path" to "Local Path" as advised, but the section for "M3U Playlist Path", "XMLTV Path" etc are unpopulated. Re-running "Setup IPTV Simple Client" in IPTV Merge does not populate these fields.

I can see in IPTV Merge's configuration that its outputs to a folder called special:/ ../plugin.program.i.. (obviously abbreviated - what is the full path?), but I cannot see how to navigate to this directory to enter the correct information?

Can someone please advise what I should put in each of the fields in IPTV Simple Client to get this to work? (Full path structure please).

TIA

[matthuisman]

@Paul608085 
are you able to provide a zip of your IPTV Simple user-data folder?
I want to investigate why the automatic setup isn't working

[Paul608085]

@matthuisman
Thanks for the reply.

Please can you tell me how to extract that folder from my Sony Android TV to my desktop PC so that I can zip it up and forward it? (Or is there a facility within Kodi to do this?). The TV has a file manager app installed and a spare USB port.

One thing that I have noticed since last posting, is that there are now 2 entries in IPTV Simple Client > Configure: "Edit Migrated Add-on Config" and "Edit IPTV Merge". The former has always been there and does not have those fields populated, but the latter I think is new and does have paths in those fields. Could "Migrated Add-on Config" be taking priority "IPTV Merge"? Disabling the former seems to have resolved the problem, (at the moment).

Should I have had to have done that and is it likely to be a long term fix? The settings seem to change every time I look at them!

[Paul608085]

@matthuisman
Unfortunately I am still having problems with this - but something different happened this morning.

As well as the Sony Android TV which is in our lounge, I also run Kodi on my Amazon Fire Stick 4K Max on the Samsung TV in the bedroom. The Fire Stick powers from one of the TV's USB sockets, and completely powers off when the TV is switched off - it therefore fully reboots when the TV is switched on. I switched on the bedroom TV when I got up this morning and the Kodi EPG was fully populated with channels and data.

I switched on the Sony Android TV and started up Kodi. This time the EPG again only had satellite channels and data from my TVHeadend add-on - no IPTV channels or data again. This TV is left in standby overnight, (like most I think?), so always has power going to it. I wondered if Kodi was not shutting down properly when exited, so pulled out the mains power connector from the TV for 30 seconds and re-inserted it. Kodi still only had satellite channels in the EPG.

I then went to the IPTV Merge in Add-Ons, and saw that the first entry at the top of the list was "Setup IPTV Simple Client" - the one that you would normally only get when first installing, and only have to run once.

I ran that, and then went to IPTV Merge's Configuration. This time, the ""Edit Migrated Add-on Config" (Disabled)" entry that was there yesterday had disappeared, and there was only "Edit "IPTV Merge" (Enabled).

I also had full IPTV channels and data in the EPG. 

I did say in my post yesterday that the settings seem to change every time I look at them! What is going on

[Paul608085]

AAAARGH!!!

After my previous post just over an hour ago, when everything seemed OK, I turned the Sony TV off, (to standby).

I have just switched it back on, selected Kodi from the home screen, and let it fully start up, (left it for about 3 minutes), before navigating to and entering the EPG "Guide".

Again, only satellite channels are showing - no IPTV channels in the Genres at the top, channels in the EPG or programme data.

I have had another look at the Settings/Configuration, but can't see anything different from an hour ago when it was working OK.

What on earth is going on here? I am happy to post logs etc if someone can please tell me how to extract them from my Sony Android TV?

One thing that I don't think that I've mentioned previously is that I do not use @matthuisman 's Pluto and SamsungTV plugins directly, but have my own m3u playlist that I made using Matt's files, with the EPG data also linked to Matt's. I have been using this method for many month's without issues - it worked fine in Kodi v19 - so unless the formatting/syntax requirements have changed with Kodi v20, I don't think that is the issue?

[matthuisman]

go back to 19.5?

[Paul608085]

go back to 19.5?

Hi Matt,

Yes that thought had occurred to me - but it would mean negotiating even more time on the main family TV to do that, and I'm already making myself very unpopular!

However another thought has occurred to me since my last post: my "Pluto-Samsung.m3u" playlist is stored on our home server network storage, and IPTV Merge on both the Sony TV and Firestick are set to look at that file. The server is set to spin down its disks after 20 minutes of non-use.

I was thinking that maybe for some reason, the Kodi on the Sony TV isn't waking up the server in time to retrieve the playlist, but the Kodi on the Firestick does? To test this, I have copied the playlist to local storage on the TV and have re-configured IPTV Merge to look at this file instead.

On the initial test, the EPG has populated correctly, but I'm going to keep an eye on it.

I will report back here with what happens!

[Paul608085]

Moving my M3U playlist file to local storage on the Sony Android TV did not resolve this issue for me, so I did revert back to Kodi v19.5 and it has been good for about 4 days now.

I did have a problem with Kodi updating to v20 overnight every night for a few days, so a number of mornings spent re-installing and setting up each time! Although I thought that I had turned off everything within Kodi to do with automatic updating, it appears that Google Play was the problem and forcing an update to the TV, (I installed the APK from a file I downloaded a while ago from the Kodi website). It seems that with the TV version of Android, it is not possible to turn off automatic updates selectively by application - it is all or nothing? Since I changed the updates setting in Google Play on TV to manual I haven't had a problem, but manual updates are a pain: remembering to check regularly - there were 8 non Kodi updates waiting this morning alone!

I'm guessing that there is no way within Kodi to prevent it being updated from v19.5 to v20 by Google Play, is there? (ie a setting or add-on that would do this and allow me to revert to auto updates on the TV).

[matthuisman]

app / apk updates are all done via google play. apps cant stop it themselves

[Paul608085]

app / apk updates are all done via google play. apps cant stop it themselves

Thanks for confirming Matt - I suspected that was the case.

Also is there a way to re-order the sequence that the genres appear in at the top row of the Kodi EPG?

Both of my Kodi, (v19.5), installations, the Sony Android TV and a Fire Sick 4K Max, are set up in the same way. TV channel sources in both cases are my own playlist of Pluto and Samsung channels, (one playlist, stored on my home server) - compiled from your playlists and EPG sources - another playlist of "International" channels that is linked to via an EPG provider's website: both set up via IPTV Merge, and also UK free satellite channels via Kodi's official TVHeadend add-on.

The various genres appear in a different order on each device, and there doesn't seem to be any pattern - it looks completely random?

Is there a way to re-order the genres to my own preference please?

[matthuisman]

The pattern is the appear in the order they first appear in the playlist from top to bottom.

IPTV Merge Settings > Group Order Override
Type in the names of groups / genres that you want to go first seperated by ;

eg. Movies;Sport

This will force Movies then Sport and then all other groups will be in order they appears in playlist.

All this option does is adds that line above to the top of the playlist so they become the first groups seen