Pluto-for-channels EPG not updating

[ryanchild]

I'm using @maddox's pluto-for-channels docker app for PlutoTV M3U and EPG, has been working great for the last couple months.

Tonight suddenly all my PlutoTV channels guide data are empty. My guide looks like this:

If I download /devices/M3U-Pluto/guide/xmltv?duration=1209600, it looks like this:

<programme start="20250106050000 +0000" stop="20250106060000 +0000" channel="9202">
<title>Pluto TV 007 @ 10PM</title>
<desc>
The action, cars, and shaken (not stirred) martinis of the world’s greatest super spy are now on Pluto TV 007. Watch Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
</desc>
<category>Movies</category>
<icon src="https://images.pluto.tv/channels/5d4db961034718b2f52f9e52/featuredImage.jpg?fill=blur&fit=fill&fm=jpg&h=562&q=75&w=1000"/>
<series-id system="placeholder">placeholder/pluto-tv-007/10PM</series-id>
<date>20250105</date>
<previously-shown/>
<episode-num system="placeholder">placeholder/pluto-tv-007/1736139600</episode-num>
</programme>
<programme start="20250106060000 +0000" stop="20250106070000 +0000" channel="9202">
<title>Pluto TV 007 @ 11PM</title>
<desc>
The action, cars, and shaken (not stirred) martinis of the world’s greatest super spy are now on Pluto TV 007. Watch Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
</desc>
<category>Movies</category>
<icon src="https://images.pluto.tv/channels/5d4db961034718b2f52f9e52/featuredImage.jpg?fill=blur&fit=fill&fm=jpg&h=562&q=75&w=1000"/>
<series-id system="placeholder">placeholder/pluto-tv-007/11PM</series-id>
<date>20250105</date>
<previously-shown/>
<episode-num system="placeholder">placeholder/pluto-tv-007/1736143200</episode-num>
</programme>

That repeats every hour, over and over. For just the 007 and Godzilla channels. There are no <programme> for any other channel.

The EPG from pluto-for-channels looks correct, it's up-to-date and fully populated for all channels.

If I "Redownload XMLTV" the guide doesn't update and the log says Indexed 0 airings into XMLTV-Pluto (445 channels over 0s) + 15703 skipped [2s index]

I think what happened is that the 007 and Godzilla channels disappeared from the M3U and EPG after Pluto removed them, and Channels is confused and stopped updating guide data for the other channels for some reason.

To work around I suppose I could delete and re-create all guide data for all sources. Or delete and re-create this source and re-add dozens of channels to my channel collections. But for a real fix....

[ryanchild]

My mistake, the EPG from pluto-for-channels was not up to date.

pluto-for-channels was still serving up stale EPG but apparently stopped grabbing from Pluto a few days ago:

2025/01/03 12:22:51,stdout,(node:9287) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block	or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 1)				

2025/01/03 12:22:51,stdout,    at TCPConnectWrap.afterConnect [as oncomplete] (net.js:1129:14)

2025/01/03 12:22:51,stdout,(node:9287) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: connect ETIMEDOUT 3.169.202.48:443

Looks like maybe some loop that was responsible for getting updates from Pluto hit an unhandled exception?

It’s working fine after restarting the container.

Searching the Pluto Custom Channel megathread I see some mentions of other pluto-for-channels errors but not this one.

Edit: I renamed the topic since it turned out not to be related to the channel lineup change. Maybe I should delete and repost as an issue on the github repo?

[babsonnexus]

You should probably get off the Maddox one and use the more up-to-date and maintained @joagomez one:

GitHub - jgomez177/pluto-for-channels

Or, if you don't want to deal with Docker, you could use use @HankLloydRight's nocords.xyz:

https://nocords.xyz/

If you go down the Docker path, there are plenty of other FAST and similar providers to integrate like Plex, Tubi, Samsung TV+, ESPN+, NFL+, and plenty more! And to help deal with the overwhelming mass of stations this creates is Playlist Manager for Channels (a Streaming Library Manager Extension):

[RELEASE] Playlist Manager for Channels [Streaming Library Manager Extension]

There are a lot of fantastic methods for integrating custom stations into Channels DVR, especially from FAST and similar providers like Pluto, Plex, Tubi, Samsung TV+, ESPN+, NFL+, and plenty more! The problem is, they require a fair bit of maintenance. For instance, there are whole threads and tools dedicated just to keeping track of which stations have been added and removed. And that doesn't even get into the redundancy of when each of these services have the same stations, but you have to de…

Further, to assist with getting all these set up is Project One-Click, part of OliveTin for Channels:

Project One-Click: All-in-One Installations of Docker Extensions and CDVR Custom Channels

Now that there are a host of excellent Docker-based extensions for Channels DVR, @mjitkop and @bnhf thought it was about time we had an excellent way to install them! Specifically, an all-in-one "one-click" approach that would spin-up the container and do the Custom Channels setup as well. OliveTin and Portainer were perfect for this project, and are prerequisites. OliveTin provides the user interface for the minimal set of values you need to provide and Portainer, with its API, allows for the …

Happy building and then watching!

[ryanchild]

Thanks. Somehow I missed that @maddox was no longer maintaining pluto-for-channels and a different one had emerged (not forked?). I’ll switch.

By the way, Channels — Community which you just linked still references the @maddox one…

[speedingcheetah]

In some other thread, i was told that the Maddox docker is maintained and is still in use by many users here, including myself. It is my primary source for most things atm. And, it is currently working fine.

[ryanchild]

it is currently working fine.

It was working fine for me, too. Until a request to PlutoTV randomly timed out and I hit that unhandled exception and had to restart the container. And I've never tried to watch the CNN Headlines channel. There is an open issue in maddox/pluto-for-channels titled "Unable to tune Pluto CNN Headlines channel" and a recent commit to jgomez177/pluto-for-channels was labeled "Added Fix for CNN Headlines."

I'm grateful for the community devs on here but isn't "fork, fix, test, pull request" the normal GitHub model?

I'll open an issue on maddox/pluto-for-channels for this error and give him a chance to fix, if he is indeed still maintaining his repo. If that goes nowhere I guess I'll give @jgomez177's version a try.

[speedingcheetah]

Oh,. One channel has issues, think that is a newer channel. One I don't watch...so... The newer docker would be better for you.

[chDVRuser]

The jgomez version has been working for me.
Only issue is if Channels DVR tries to refresh the playlist or XLMTV guide when his container is fetching guide data, it fails. Same with his Tubi and Plex containers. Depends on the timing, I get one to ten of these failures/month using his Pluto container.
either this

[ERR] Failed to request m3u for Pluto: read tcp 192.168.1.4:54316->192.168.1.3:8080: read: connection reset by peer

or this

[ERR] Failed to request m3u for Pluto: context deadline exceeded (Client.Timeout exceeded while awaiting headers)

[Linksys7]

Does jgomez177 have a Stirr-for-Channels also?

[babsonnexus]

@Linksys7

Stirr-for-Channels

Nothing has changed since you last inquired:

Stirr station id

Unfortunately Stirr has new management and no longer integrates properly as a custom channel with CDVR:

You can see all of @joagomez's excellent work here:

jgomez177 - Repositories

[Linksys7]

Yeah, the previous one i got from robbie didnt seem like was being updated and all i get from his current one are errors in docker. Thanx, ill look at that, appreciate it.

[chDVRuser]

@ryanchild

I'll open an issue on maddox/pluto-for-channels for this error and give him a chance to fix, if he is indeed still maintaining his repo.

Looks like your fix made it into dockerhub on January 8th. (I'm sure you knew) https://hub.docker.com/r/jonmaddox/pluto-for-channels/tags

Just notifying other users, since maddox didn't post anything in his Topic thread Pluto for Channels
Maybe because that Topic thread is now a mix of maddox and joagomez dockers.