I felt the same way as you for a long time. Tried every free DVR system out there but they all had one issue or another. Finally pulled the trigger on a Channels subscription and I am so glad that I did. The software just works. No fiddling around with buggy or complicated interfaces. It’s worth the $80 a year.
6 Likes
I'm on my second year with Channels and i also subscribe to Stremium and Channels is much better-pollished.
Hi All,
I'm using the latest image of Frndly TV and notice that FETV is dropping out on the video side.
Does anyone see the sam result on the default app.
Stremium seems to be having the same issue.
I just wanted to see what others were observing.
If it happens at the Frndly TV website, contact them about the issue.
If you record something from that channel using Channels DVR, does it show the recording was interrupted? If so, you could submit diagnostics from your Channels DVR server.
I've had no issues and my last 4 recordings from the channel were fine (last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and today). Also have 2 recordings scheduled for late tonight.
And I just checked my dvr log, no issues with 59 recordings made from that channel since I started using frndlyTV 19 days ago.
Yesterday, I finally managed to get it working as a Python server. It worked fine last night.
This morning though, problem:
127.0.0.1 - - [25/May/2022 08:57:02] "GET /play/heroes___icons.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 302 -
Failed to download: https://i.mjh.nz/frndly_tv/app.json
127.0.0.1 - - [25/May/2022 09:20:01] "GET /playlist.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 200 -
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 31
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 44
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 33
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 1
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 2
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 15
...
And then in the afternoon recordings failed because the guide was empty and still is:
I just restarted the Python server, and refreshed the guide. Seems to be good now:
Anybody else having this issue?
Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
What are you running the Python server on?
It's been working for me since I set it up 3 weeks ago, but I'm using the docker container.
Maybe use the IP address of the Python server instead of local loopback 127.0.0.1?
Here's my custom channel settings
Since the playlist already contains the gracenote station id's for guide mapping, no need to specify an XMLTV url in the settings. Channels DVR will update the guide data daily like it does for HDHR and TVE sources.
I am running the no docker version on a Windows computer as described on Frndly TV for Channels (matthuisman.nz)
I have used the docker container before when it was also being used for Pluto TV. Later on, I found out about the playlist to have Pluto TV without docker so then Frndly was the only one left running in docker.
Since I also recently found out about the no docker version of Frndly TV for Channels, I wanted to use it so that I didn't have to have docker running on my Windows machine anymore.
When I set up the custom channel for it, I set it up this way:
However, when I open the settings now to see what that looks like, I'm seeing this:
That's interesting because this EPG configuration is a leftover from a previous configuration but the IP address is not valid anymore. I tried to clear the cache of the browser (Edge) and recreate the custom channel. That didn't help, it always repopulates the EPG part with this old and invalid IP address.
Any ideas how to avoid this?
1 Like
I've seen issues with Channels DVR leaving remnants of removed M3U sources and their channels, so I would remove it and add it again with a slightly different name, like Frndly-TV or frndlyTV. Something the devs should look into..
2 Likes
Thank you for the tip. It worked after I created it with a different name. 
I still get the guide issue every morning:
127.0.0.1 - - [27/May/2022 08:57:02] "GET /play/heroes___icons.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 302 -
Failed to download: https://i.mjh.nz/frndly_tv/app.json
127.0.0.1 - - [27/May/2022 09:49:00] "GET /playlist.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 200 -
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 31
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 44
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 33
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 1
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 2
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 15
...
I have to keep restarting it manually every time.
There are no other issues with my network and server at that time.
I take it that's the output from the python?
I never looked at the docker container log since everything works.
Here's my docker container log from yesterday
2022-05-26 03:03:55 stderr 172.18.0.1 - - [26/May/2022 03:03:55] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -
2022-05-26 03:03:55 stderr 172.18.0.1 - - [26/May/2022 03:03:55] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 -
2022-05-26 16:56:00 stdout 401
2022-05-26 16:56:00 stdout Unauthorized access
2022-05-26 16:56:00 stdout logging in....
2022-05-26 16:56:01 stdout Logged in!
2022-05-26 16:56:03 stderr 192.168.1.3 - - [26/May/2022 16:56:03] "GET /playlist.m3u8?start_chno=9001 HTTP/1.1" 200 -
2022-05-26 16:56:03 stdout No gracenote id found in epg map for: 38
2022-05-26 16:56:03 stdout No gracenote id found in epg map for: 16
2022-05-26 23:58:00 stdout 401
2022-05-26 23:58:00 stdout Unauthorized access
2022-05-26 23:58:00 stdout logging in....
2022-05-26 23:58:01 stdout Logged in!
2022-05-26 23:58:02 stdout channel/live/heroes___icons > https://sr-live2-frndly.akamaized.net/....
2022-05-26 23:58:02 stderr 192.168.1.3 - - [26/May/2022 23:58:02] "GET /play/heroes___icons.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 302 -
Did you take my tip?
I've had 16 days of guide data since I set it up
Yes, I did take your tip and left the EPG field blank. This is what it looks like right now when I open the settings:
My log when I restarted the Python server earlier:
C:\Users\mjitk\frndlytv-for-channels>C:\Users\mjitk\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python310\python app.py --PORT 8183 --USERNAME "(hidden)" --PASSWORD "(hidden)"
Starting server on port 8183
logging in....
Logged in!
127.0.0.1 - - [27/May/2022 19:22:34] "GET /playlist.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 200 -
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 38
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 16
That's all on the screen right now, it's just running, waiting for activity from Channels.
It's always in the morning when the first recording is scheduled that it fails to download the json file. After that, guide data is lost.
Hmmm.
Are you using his latest python script version?
Supposed to be the same as the latest docker container I'm running.
I downloaded the script 3 days ago. I don't see any version numbers in the code so I'm not sure which version it is. Here are the file attributes:
So it looks like it was last updated on 2/18/2022.
Commits
Thanks. I will try to update it.
10 minutes later...
OK, I cloned the latest code and I can see a difference in file sizes so I should have the latest code now.
Server restarted and running. I will keep an eye on it.
Thanks for your support, @chDVRuser ! 
1 Like
Again, this morning:
Failed to download: https://i.mjh.nz/frndly_tv/app.json
127.0.0.1 - - [28/May/2022 09:47:01] "GET /playlist.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 200 -
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 31
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 44
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 33
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 1
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 2
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 15
No gracenote id found in epg map for: 38
...
I don't know why it fails to download it. I just checked the link manually now and I'm able to see the file.
I'm going to save the json file to my computer and then modify the code on my computer so that it uses the local copy of the json file instead of trying to download it.
This json file won't change until Frndly TV modifies the channel lineup so it's safe to keep it constant for now.
Strange.
I see you had guide problems using Docker previously (which uses the same code).
Maybe something with the user account running the python code, or a firewall, ad blocker or dns causing it to fail getting the json file.
Probably the python code should ignore the failure instead of wiping out the old mappings.
I suspect cloudflare protection may cause some of these types of intermittent errors.
cc @matthuisman
Wonder if @mjitkop has something else in his setup hitting that domain besides the daily morning guide update. Mine has been working fine and hasn't triggered any cloudflare protection.
Maybe the cloudflare server he's hitting is getting too many requests for that domain?
According to https://www.nslookup.io/ I'm using the San Francisco, CA servers.