DVR Project on MacOS

[David_Briand]

Team, new to Channels DVR and having difficulty adding a custom channel. Platform is Mac mini running 26.5.2

Log file data ..
2026/07/28 09:48:43.706995 [SYS] Starting Channels DVR v2026.06.29.0212 (darwin-arm64 pid:977) in /Users/davidbriand/Library/Application Support/ChannelsDVR/data
2026/07/28 09:48:43.909667 [SYS] Started HTTP Server on 8089
2026/07/28 09:48:44.403425 [ERR] Failed to refresh auth: missing oauth client
2026/07/28 09:48:45.215677 [SYS] Bonjour service registered with DavidsMacmini2
2026/07/28 10:02:29.298161 [TLS] Requesting certificate for c4c1e216076f.u.channelsdvr.net
2026/07/28 10:06:46.029789 [DVR] Recording engine started in /Users/davidbriand/Documents/ChannelsDVR
2026/07/28 10:06:46.214369 [SYS] Created database snapshot: backup-20260728.140646
2026/07/28 10:07:51.522687 [TLS] Certificate ready for c4c1e216076f.u.channelsdvr.net
2026/07/28 10:30:08.841461 [ERR] Unexpected m3u response for Strong8K: 884
2026/07/28 10:40:58.102921 [ERR] Timeout while fetching m3u for Strong8K: Get "http://pro.strong132k.store": context deadline exceeded (Client.Timeout exceeded while awaiting headers)
2026/07/28 10:42:04.517740 [ERR] Failed to parse m3u for Strong8K: malformed M3U provided
2026/07/28 10:42:50.044409 [ERR] Unexpected m3u response for Strong8K: 884
2026/07/28 10:44:06.762139 [ERR] Unexpected m3u response for Strong8K: 884
2026/07/28 10:44:45.632136 [ERR] Failed to parse m3u for Strong8K: malformed M3U provided
2026/07/28 10:45:15.168609 [ERR] Failed to parse m3u for Strong8K: malformed M3U provided
2026/07/28 10:46:01.181754 [ERR] Empty m3u for Strong8K: no channels found in m3u
2026/07/28 10:47:15.985033 [ERR] Failed to open m3u for Strong8K: open http://pro.strong132k.store/xmltv.php?username=xxxxxxxxxx&password=yyyyyyyyy: no such file or directory
2026/07/28 10:47:44.036789 [ERR] Failed to parse m3u for Strong8K: malformed M3U provided
2026/07/28 10:48:36.208383 [ERR] Failed to parse m3u for Strong8K: malformed M3U provided

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

[Fofer]

Looks like you are trying to add an IPTV source that Channels DVR doesn’t support directly. For starters Channels DVR only supports the first 750 channels in custom sources. You’ll need to run your custom source through an M3U editor like Dispatcharr, M3U Editor, or m3u4u.com first. Here’s a slightly older writeup which may help

https://medium.com/@jeffgrainger/how-i-built-a-full-dvr-with-my-iptv-provider-and-the-channels-app-52621cd1078a

[David_Briand]

This is great! It's been a journey trying to figure out how to configure the recording platform for
IPTV. Seems like it's possible (but certainly not obvious). thanks again

[Morris_Altman]

If you are using a common IPTV source, it may be supported by FastChannels:

FastChannels - FAST Channels aggregator/manager

FastChannels I wanted to share something I've been building called FastChannels — a self-hosted FAST channel aggregator that scrapes free ad-supported streaming services and delivers unified M3U playlists and XMLTV EPG guides for Channels DVR (and any other IPTV client). Why FastChannels? The problem it solves: Pluto TV, Tubi, The Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, Xumo, Plex, DistroTV, and dozens of other free streaming services each offer hundreds of live channels, but they're all siloed. Gett…

[David_Briand]

m3u4u.com is very interesting, not sure exactly how it helps.
My goal is to create a media server that stores & can playback programs (PVR like stuff) from my IPTVX player. The IPTVX Media Server works, but it has its faults as it can drain the processing power on my dedicated Mac M1 server which results in freezes. I've gone down the list (Plex, etc.) and dealing with iptv data is not as simple as I thought.