FastChannels - FAST Channels aggregator/manager

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#2204

Thought I'd give it another whack this morning. Loaded PrismCast natively on my 2018 Mac mini i5. I finally got it to pass the FastChannels test setup after configuring the Watch-page URL for PrismCast's browser (optional) with http://127.0.0.1:5523. A station will start playing for about a minute, then stops, then starts again and it will repeatedly do that until I finally get the "The connection to the tuner was lost. Press play to try again" message. If I press play, it repeats the same behavior. CPU on the mini is <20% during playback. I can see Chrome pop up multiple times in playback and I see it in the PrismCast logs:

[2026/07/19 11:48:37.789 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Streaming http://127.0.0.1:5523/watch/6458: 0.1, keyboardFullscreen, FFmpeg [⚡ HEVC]. Tuned in 4.9s (direct).
[2026/07/19 11:49:06.296 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Playback buffering - recovering via source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:49:10.847 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Recovered in 4.5s via source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:49:16.299 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Playback buffering - recovering via page navigation.
[2026/07/19 11:49:18.096 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Recovered in 1.8s via page navigation.
[2026/07/19 11:49:48.309 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Playback buffering - recovering via source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:49:52.853 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Recovered in 4.5s via source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:49:58.311 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Playback buffering - recovering via page navigation.
[2026/07/19 11:50:00.416 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Recovered in 2.1s via page navigation.
[2026/07/19 11:50:30.317 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Playback buffering - recovering via source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:50:34.863 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Recovered in 4.5s via source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:50:40.319 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Playback buffering - recovering via page navigation.
[2026/07/19 11:50:42.149 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Recovered in 1.8s via page navigation.
[2026/07/19 11:51:12.350 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Playback buffering - recovering via source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:51:16.904 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Recovered in 4.6s via source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:51:22.354 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Playback buffering - recovering via page navigation.
[2026/07/19 11:51:22.354 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Page navigation rate limit reached (3 in 15 minutes) - falling back to source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:51:24.356 AM] [WARN] [0.1-bmqpx3] Page navigation did not resolve the issue - escalating to source reload.
[2026/07/19 11:51:34.361 AM] [ERROR] [0.1-bmqpx3] Recovery failed after 10 attempts in 148s - terminating stream.
[2026/07/19 11:51:34.364 AM] [0.1-bmqpx3] Stream ended after 3m 1s (too many errors). Recoveries: 7 (3x page navigation, 4x source reload), avg 3.4s.
[2026/07/19 11:51:35.226 AM] GET /hls/play-7adf62c6/stream.m3u8 from 10.255.51.101 responded 404 in 0.925 ms.
[2026/07/19 11:51:37.226 AM] GET /hls/play-7adf62c6/stream.m3u8 from 10.255.51.101 responded 404 in 0.496 ms.
[2026/07/19 11:51:39.227 AM] GET /hls/play-7adf62c6/stream.m3u8 from 10.255.51.101 responded 404 in 0.461 ms.
[2026/07/19 11:51:41.229 AM] GET /hls/play-7adf62c6/stream.m3u8 from 10.255.51.101 responded 404 in 0.785 ms.
[2026/07/19 11:51:43.228 AM] GET /hls/play-7adf62c6/stream.m3u8 from 10.255.51.101 responded 404 in 0.502 ms.
[2026/07/19 11:51:45.230 AM] GET /hls/play-7adf62c6/stream.m3u8 from 10.255.51.101 responded 404 in 0.792 ms.

Not much in the logs of FastChannels, so it looks like I still have an issue with PrismCast:

2026-07-19 11:45:17,898 INFO     app.scrapers.philo: [philo] resolve Q2hhbm5lbDo2MDg1NDg4OTk2NDg0Mzk2OTU → dashURL (license=yes)
2026-07-19 11:49:58,559 INFO     app.scrapers.philo: [philo] resolve Q2hhbm5lbDo2MDg1NDg4OTk2NDg0Mzk2OTU → dashURL (license=yes)
2026-07-19 11:57:06,342 INFO     app.scrapers.philo: [philo] resolve Q2hhbm5lbDo2MDg1NDg4OTk2NDg0Mzk2OTU → dashURL (license=yes)
#2205

What source?

#2206

Oh Philo. Yes I have a bug there that’s causing intermittent streaming errors with Prism. I got a fix - will push out tonight.

#2207

I used FastChannels on Fubo and it was GREAT! However, I'm now switching to DirectTV Stream. Is there any chance of getting an interface to DTV-Stream?

#2208

PrismCast has DirecTV Stream built into the app.

#2209

I looked at PrismCast, and it looked great, but I could not figure out how to install and configure it. Are there instructions (for dummies). If so, I'll give it a try.

#2210

Does it have cool guide like I have thou? :crazy_face:

#2211

FastChannels was very easy to install and use. I would love to stick with it. Can you make it work with DirectTV Stream?

#2212

Sure I’ll look into it

1 Like
#2213

If you don't have access to DirectTV Stream, there is a 5 day free trial, and I would be happy to buy you a month of service. The Entertainment Pack is $42.99/mo

#2214

• FastChannels 4.9.1 — What's New

Feed editor upgrades

  • The feed editor has a new two-pane layout that makes channel selection easier to work with.
  • You can now preview the feed’s channel order and drag/drop channels to set a custom order.
  • Manual feed ordering is saved as feed-specific channel numbers, so your M3U order and tvg-chno stay aligned.

Philo playback fixes

  • Improves Philo DASH playback recovery, especially cases where playback would stall after manifest refreshes.
  • Also handles rejected/stale Philo player IDs by re-registering automatically.

Frndly guide artwork

  • Improves Frndly EPG artwork parsing and adds richer guide artwork enrichment.
  • The admin guide modal now shows program artwork and more episode details when available.

Fixes & polish

Small admin UI improvements, cleaner source eligibility hints in the feed modal, and quieter noisy playback acces logs.

Upgrading

  git pull
  docker compose build && docker compose up -d
1 Like
#2215

:latest is still pulling v4.9.0 Package fastchannels · GitHub
Can you tag the new image

#2216

looks like github is having a bad night.. action is what creates the docker image.

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Jul 20, 2026 - 00:20 UTC

2 Likes
#2217

Looks like the github issue is resolved and was able to spin up the 4.9.1 release and I wanted to let you know that your work on the Philo integration works very well and now I have the tough decision of doing 100% FastChannels DRM vs TVE hybrid. Thank you again for all your support and effort, this solution is awesome.

#2218

thanks OP. this replaced my non-working containers i hadn't had a chance to get to and streamlines things nicely.

too bad the channels collection side is still so clunky. can't map a collection to multiple sources and keep it synced, can't mass delete items, need to manually prune dead stuff. i'll have to dig deeper but have a feeling fastchannels will solve some of this.

#2219

I'm still trying to make prismcast/fastchannels pass the third part of the setup test (end-to-end capture -- currently returning http 500 error).

One suggestion I saw was to change the ports of prismcast and fastchannels. When I try to change the port for fastchannels in the web UI and click "save", it purports to have changed (will show the new port number), but in practice, fastchannels is still reachable only on the original port.

Is there another step I need to take to change the port so I can test if this is my issue?

#2220

Lets figure this out. Hit us with screenshots of these two fields. Then, what kinda setup you running this on? Linux, Mac, Windows, etc?

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#2221

Isn't DirecTV DRM that would require PrismCast anyway?

FastChannels was exactly why I ditched Philo/LinkPi/FireSticks and subscribed to Frndly. You've spoiled us and I greatly appreciate all your hard work.

#2222

Yea I've looked into it in the past and it's 100% DRM so it would require the bridge. I have some old research saved so I should be able to add it relatively easily - i Hope.

1 Like
#2223

If it requires the bridge, wouldn't it be better to just set it up directly in PrismCast since it's already built in the PrismCast app or am I missing the point?