Where the guide comes from

The programme guide is separate data from the channel list, and it usually comes from a different address.

What the app uses

1. The playlist’s own guide. An Xtream account publishes one with your login; the app builds that address itself. Guide from my playlist in Settings → EPG & Guide (on by default) turns it on and off. EPG source at the top of the same screen shows what it resolved to: Auto · host (Xtream), XMLTV · host when you typed an address there, or Not set.
2. The EPG URL you typed when adding an M3U playlist.
3. Extra EPG sources you added by hand, any number of them. See Adding your own XMLTV. Adding, saving or removing one downloads only that source, not all the others again, which matters for guide services that count downloads against a limit.

All of them are used together. With several playlists open, every playlist keeps its own sources and is refreshed on its own schedule, and an extra source can be set to serve all playlists or one. A channel is only matched against data its own playlist is entitled to.

The account panel shows and edits the same sources on its Guide page, under Sources.

How a channel is matched to a programme

Playlist names are almost never equal to guide ids, so both sides are normalised before they are compared: country prefixes go, quality tags like HD, FHD, 4K, RAW go, accents fold, and only what is left is compared.

A US local channel with the station’s call sign in its name, like Local FOX (KDFW), takes its programmes from any of your guide sources that lists that station.

Two rules matter when you are wondering why something did or did not match:

• When one name could mean two channels, the app refuses to guess. An empty guide on one channel is better than the wrong programme on it.
• A match you made by hand is never overwritten by a later refresh. Setting a channel back to the automatic match reaches your other devices too.

Auto-match channels to EPG (phone) or Match channels to the guide (television, Windows, Mac, LG and Samsung TVs) in Settings → EPG & Guide runs the matcher over every channel without a guide at once. On a phone it reports Matched N of M channels, All channels already have EPG, or Auto-match failed; on a television Matched N of M channels or Nothing new to match.

Fixing one channel by hand: Reassign EPG

When a channel shows the wrong programmes, or none:

• Phone: in Live TV or one of your own groups, press and hold the channel to select it and tap EPG. In the phone guide, tap the channel on the left and pick Reassign EPG.
• Television, Windows, Mac, LG and Samsung TVs: hold OK on the channel (right-click on Windows and the Mac) and pick Reassign EPG in TV Channels, or Guide source in the TV Guide. The line under Guide source shows Now and the guide id in use, or No guide source linked to this channel.

Then:

1. With more than one guide source, pick a source above the list (or All) to see only its channels.
2. Type part of the name in the search field to narrow the list.
3. Pick the guide channel. The guide updates for that channel at once.
4. Reset to original goes back to the automatic match.

The account panel does the same on its Guide page, under Channel matching.

Several channels can share one guide, for example every version of the same channel:

• Phone: select them in Live TV or one of your groups and tap EPG.
• Television, Windows, Mac, LG and Samsung TVs: in Settings → Categories, open a category’s single items, Select the channels, then Reassign EPG.
• Account panel: tick them in a category on the Channels page, then Guide….

Then pick the guide channel once, and it applies to all of them.

Keeping it current

Setting	Options	Default	What it does
Keep the guide up to date (phone), Refresh the guide automatically (television)	on / off	on	Re-downloads only when the source changed or the guide is running out, not on a fixed clock
Update on Wi-Fi only	on / off	off	Phone and tablet only. An automatic refresh waits for Wi-Fi. Update all always works, mobile data or not
Update all			Fetches everything due, immediately, and shows under it when it last succeeded or what went wrong
Keep the guide for	1, 2, 3 or 7 days	7 days	How many days ahead and back stay on the device

On a television that blocks background work, the automatic refresh row says This TV blocks background updates, the guide refreshes when you open the app.

Keep the guide for is about disk. At 7 days the device keeps up to a week ahead and as much catch-up history as your provider offers, up to a week back. A shorter choice keeps that many days ahead and back and drops older programmes to save space, on channels with catch-up too. The catch-up list of a channel still offers the days your provider keeps.

This setting belongs to the device: a cheap television with 8 GB of storage and a phone have no business sharing it. The account panel sets it for each device on Guide → Guide settings. The other settings in the table follow your account.

Time offset

Some providers publish their guide in a timezone that is not yours and not UTC either.

• For the whole guide: EPG time offset on a phone, Guide time offset on a television, in Settings → EPG & Guide. Up to three hours either way in half-hour steps, default none. It syncs to your other devices and the account panel edits it.
• For one channel: when only one channel runs early or late, such as a +1 channel that shares the guide of the main channel, use Guide time offset in that channel’s options: on a phone in the same sheet as Reassign EPG, on a television, Windows, the Mac and LG TVs by holding OK on the channel. It shifts the programme times of that channel only, in the guide, search, catch-up and Sports, and reaches your other devices. The account panel edits it too.

When there is nothing

See The guide stays empty. The usual answer is that the guide is still downloading, or that the playlist has no guide address at all.