I have a m3u which downloads fine when I hit it in a browser. However, when I create Custom Channel, I get this error: " failed to load m3u: timeout while fetching m3u: context deadline exceeded (Client.Timeout or context cancellation while reading body)".
How do I fix this?
Channel DVR is timing out trying to fetch the m3u from the source url you gave it.
I think it's a 12 second timeout.
I see it often in my log with 3rd party custom m3u sources like Frndly, Plex, Pluto, etc.
In this case the FrndlyTV source doesn't reply in time
2025/10/29 11:09:20.221692 [ERR] Timeout while requesting m3u for frndlyTV: Get "http://192.168.1.3:8183/playlist.m3u?gracenote=include": context deadline exceeded (Client.Timeout exceeded while awaiting headers)
A minute later Channels DVR retries and it works
2025/10/29 11:10:21.226569 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for frndlyTV with 59 channels
Here the Plex source doesn't respond in time
2025/10/29 11:59:07.626948 [ERR] Timeout while requesting m3u for PlexTVGracenote: Get "http://192.168.1.3:7781/plex/playlist.m3u?gracenote=include": context deadline exceeded (Client.Timeout exceeded while awaiting headers)
How long does it take when you try to fetch the m3u file using a browser from your DVR server?
Apparently longer than 12s. I guess I could write a script to wget it daily, and point ChannelsDVR to the pulled file?
Even pulling it from a local file failed. That was certainly not longer than 12s.
Is there a limit to file size? This one is 431.MB.
Please read the documentation on adding Custom Channels.
You’re likely handing it 10,000 channels, which it won’t process anyways.
You need to give Channels DVR Server a curated set of channels, not 10,000.
For starters, regardless, Channels will only present the first 750 channels so you’ll need to prune that down significantly