I don’t trust the hourly XML refresh on channels. It never seems to work like it says it should. Not sure why either so I force it.
1 Like
When Channels DVR refreshes the XMLTV guide data for one source device, that resets the timer for all XMLTV source devices. So if you have one set to refresh every hour and others set to refresh less often, those others will never refresh until the morning guide update.
That's why I set all my XMLTV sources to refresh every hour, and they do.
1 Like
oh .. weird. unless I need a reboot, but now that I'm using FASTChannels to push the episode guide update, I see it reindexing the sources but erratically not actually fetching the guide data and thus being ineffective.
Guess I'll do it myself thanks to someone asking about a manual trigger in this post API - To kick off guide refresh, so I tried to run the api calls on all my sources in a script, but realized if I trigger all of them at once, the same thing happens. So now my script pauses a minute between each push and I got reliable fetches.
I’ve cussed out the refresh thing for years. Never knew that. Geeze…
Does it do at top of the hour?
1 Like
Thanks for the tip. I'm changing my refresh settings right now. 
1 Like
A guide fetch happens when you add or edit a source with XMLTV, during the daily guide update (between 9-11am) and when the DVR restarts. After that it should refetch at the interval in the custom source setting, but like I said any source refetch resets the timer for all sources.
Check your DVR log for [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-DeviceName
Like [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Pluto in 24ms
I discovered this when maddox created the Pluto container and I modified it to fetch more often.
Log during my guide update this morning
2026/05/10 09:21:00.079343 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for Xumo with 119 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.089204 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for XumoGracenote with 4 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.123158 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for LocalNow with 90 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.169782 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for PlexTVGracenote with 127 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.201613 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for Pluto with 80 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.210190 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for SamsungTVPlusGracenote with 5 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.217946 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for LocalNowGracenote with 4 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.281697 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for SamsungTVPlus with 196 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.317717 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for DistroTV with 82 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.373880 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for TCL with 167 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.409779 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for Vizio with 90 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.435116 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for PlutoGracenote with 62 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.442458 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for DistroTVGracenote with 2 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.449557 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for CustomGracenote with 2 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.469377 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for Stirr with 49 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.477261 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for StirrGracenote with 3 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.545144 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for tubiTV with 10 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.551640 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for TCLGracenote with 1 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.572569 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for tubiTVGracenote with 50 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.579898 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for Custom with 1 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.596069 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for Vidaa with 54 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.642869 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for PlexTV with 127 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.651693 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for VidaaGracenote with 2 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.674853 [M3U] Refreshed lineup for VizioGracenote with 59 channels
2026/05/10 09:21:00.684744 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Custom in 7ms
2026/05/10 09:21:01.066842 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-LocalNow in 10ms
2026/05/10 09:21:01.872765 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-DistroTV in 18ms
2026/05/10 09:21:06.111268 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-SamsungTVPlus in 17ms
2026/05/10 09:21:08.304863 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Vizio in 82ms
2026/05/10 09:21:10.668892 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Xumo in 27ms
2026/05/10 09:21:17.537138 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-TCL in 117ms
2026/05/10 09:21:46.700436 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-PlexTV in 39ms
2026/05/10 09:21:57.040370 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Pluto in 21ms
2026/05/10 09:22:01.390681 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-tubiTV in 12ms
2026/05/10 09:22:02.538396 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Vidaa in 86ms
2026/05/10 09:22:11.722598 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Stirr in 27ms
Guide refetch one hour later
End of daily morning guide update
2026/05/10 09:27:56.104828 [IDX] Pruned 16 expired airings from XMLTV-TCL in 186ms.
One hour later
2026/05/10 10:27:56.116444 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-LocalNow in 9ms
2026/05/10 10:27:57.067026 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-DistroTV in 44ms
2026/05/10 10:28:01.238587 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-PlexTV in 40ms
2026/05/10 10:28:10.930006 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-tubiTV in 15ms
2026/05/10 10:28:11.867445 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Vizio in 53ms
2026/05/10 10:28:14.339344 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Stirr in 35ms
2026/05/10 10:28:22.652276 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Xumo in 37ms
2026/05/10 10:28:29.607361 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-TCL in 111ms
2026/05/10 10:28:59.828807 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-SamsungTVPlus in 16ms
2026/05/10 10:29:02.058076 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Pluto in 28ms
2026/05/10 10:29:06.304322 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Vidaa in 64ms
2026/05/10 10:29:15.597355 [DVR] Fetched guide data for XMLTV-Custom in 7ms
3 Likes
Is there a way to get all of the scraped guide data for a feed? I've been playing around in PowerShell and the feed's XMLTV URI only returns the guide data for the non-Gracenote channels. Is there some way to fetch the scraped guide data for the Gracenote channels in the feed?
you could in theory remove the Gracenote ID in admin/channels for the channels you want to test. make sure Gracenote is set to off.
then that channel will move over to the regular M3u/XML bucket.
Not what I'm looking for at all. Maybe you could consider adding a query string (such as
"?all=true") that would return all of the guide data. This might prove useful when using FastChannels with applications other than Channels DVR.
1 Like
They wouldn't be taking advantage of the gracenote station ID (tvc-guide-stationid) in the playlist m3u then. Why even use gracenote station ID's (tvc-guide-stationid) in that case. Channels DVR is what gets the guide data for those, not FastChannels.
Someone might have multiple applications consuming the data from FastChannels.
So what you're saying is FastChannels should return all XMLTV data, whether the channel has an assigned gracenote station ID or not.
That would make sense since a Channels DVR custom source with XMLTV data cannot be overridden with a gracenote station ID (tvc-guide-stationid) in the playlist m3u. Channels DVR just ignores the tvc-guide-stationid in the playlist m3u.
I'm not saying it should always return all the data. I am saying I would like a way to explicitly request all the data.
It wouldn't change anything in Channels DVR if it did return all the guide data for the feed.
Nobody would notice anything different. Their gracenote channels don't change and their XMLTV channels just have extra epg for the gracenote channels.
Example of 2 channels in an output feed
Channel 1 has a gracenote station ID
Channel 2 has no gracenote station ID
Standard (1) /feeds/example/m3u (has Channel 2)
Gracenote (1) /feeds/example/m3u/gracenote (has Channel 1)
EPG (2) /feeds/example/epg.xml (has both Channels 1 & 2)
What are you trying to accomplish?
What you’re asking isn’t impossible to add in code, but it just adds extra complexity for a seemingly niche request.
1 Like
Just playing around with the FastChannels data in PowerShell and wanted a way to examine all of the scraped guide data.
I really didn't intend to get into a lengthy discussion over this.
@KineticMan Question on EPGs... Checking into some missing EPGs and I'm seeing that the Samsung channels are missing a lot of guide info... Just wondering if this is an issue of scraping the EPGs from Samsung?
Also noticed that the LG channels are also missing quite a bit...
Did I miss a post where Samsung and LGs are not scraping EPGs?
I'm also having issues with EPG, especially Pluto
I'm getting about 5-6 hours for Samsung XMLTV EPG each time FastChannels scrapes (every 60 minutes). Then Channels DVR refetches from FastChannels every 60 minutes.
Set FastChannels to scrape Samsung every 60 minutes and set your Channels DVR custom source to refetch XMLTV every 60 minutes.
@chDVRuser Thanks for the response but check this out...
I don't use Channels DVR, I primarily use the in-app player...
Go to Admin/Channels tab and select only the Samsung source..
When the channels load, go down the list and just click the Preview...
First on is 21 Jump St...
Close it out and bring up any of the next 7...Same thing...
First one with guide info is ACC Digital Network...