Find the next film slot and the repeat runs in the IPTVSOSO TV guide

The IPTVSOSO TV guide is an electronic program guide, or EPG: for each live channel it lists what is airing now, when it ends, what follows, and on many channels the days ahead. Every plan includes it, for any of the 25,000+ live channels whose broadcaster supplies a schedule. The 120,000+ movies and series on demand have no air time, so you browse them elsewhere.

A channel list only tells you a channel exists. On the channels of the past, the guide tells you the useful part: when the next film begins on the classic film channel, where tonight’s run of comedy repeats starts, and how many episodes it lasts.

How a classics evening reads in the grid

Each format has a recognizable shape on screen; once you know it, one glance along a row shows the evening ahead.

These are typical shapes, not promises about any channel’s schedule. An entry’s length is the surest sign of a film rather than an episode; for more, open its details, if your player has an info button, where some channels add a description or a year.

Put the IPTVSOSO classic channels in one guide view

A guide holding every channel is thousands of rows long. Collect the film and repeat channels into favorites, switch the guide to show that list only, and the grid shrinks to a dozen rows you can read on one screen.

1. Use the player’s search to find each channel the first time: TCM, MoviePlex, Starz Encore, Hallmark and Hallmark Movies, HBO Signature, Epix / MGM+, Sundance, IFC, Boomerang, MTV and VH1, and in the UK group Gold, Dave, ITV3 and ITV4.
2. Add each one to favorites. Favorites and hidden groups need TiviMate Premium; IPTV Smarters Pro keeps a favorites category inside Live TV.
3. Select that list before opening the guide.

The page on IPTVSOSO classic channels goes through these formats in more depth, and the full IPTVSOSO channel list shows the rest of the line-up by group.

Loading the IPTVSOSO EPG: two sign-in routes

Your login comes in two forms, and the listings follow each one differently.

Xtream Codes details (server URL, username, password): usually nothing extra to do, because TiviMate and IPTV Smarters Pro, like most players, pull in the listings straight after the channel list. On a first sign-in the grid can stay empty for several minutes while they download, especially on an older box. If your player accepts either form, use this one; the IPTVSOSO Xtream Codes setup shows each field.

M3U link (the get.php address): a playlist carries the line-up and nothing about times, so in many players the grid stays blank. The cure is a second address, served by the same server as your channels, ending in xmltv.php and including your username and password:

http://your-server:port/xmltv.php?username=yourname&password=yourpass

Support will send yours already filled in, in the same WhatsApp chat as your login. Enter it in the player’s EPG or XMLTV source field. A player that accepts nothing but a playlist is dealt with in the M3U playlist guide.

UK repeats in American hours

The guide shows every listing in your device’s local time, never the broadcaster’s. On a classics row that matters, because the UK repeat channels sit in the same grid as the American film channels. London runs five hours ahead of New York for most of the year, so a 9 p.m. London slot appears at 4 p.m. on the East Coast and 1 p.m. on the West Coast. For a short spell each spring and fall, when the two countries move their clocks on different dates, the gap shrinks to four hours; a device that sets its own time follows that for you.

A grid that is off by one identical amount on every channel points to the device rather than the listings. Work through it in this order:

1. In the device’s own settings, turn on network time and pick the correct zone. Manual time never follows daylight saving, so the grid jumps an hour out twice a year.
2. Quit the player fully, start it again, then run a guide update.
3. For a gap that survives both steps, set the player’s EPG offset (some call it time shift), where your version provides one, to the size of that gap.

Then check it against any channel whose programs change on the hour.

When to refresh the listings

Listings renew themselves on a schedule inside the player, so you rarely need to step in. Do it by hand after correcting the clock, after adding a guide address, or when a channel loses listings it used to have. In TiviMate, recent versions keep an update option in the EPG settings. IPTV Smarters Pro moves its refresh between versions, into the settings or onto the Live TV screen. Elsewhere, fully closing and reopening the app does it.

Rows that say “no information”

“No information” means the player has no schedule matched to that channel. Which rows are empty tells you where to look.

Every row empty. The cause is on your side and usually simple: either the first download has not finished, or an M3U sign-in has no xmltv.php address yet. Wait a few minutes, refresh, and add the address if you signed in by link.

One row empty among full ones. Event feeds, channels opened for one match or one show, rarely come with listings; their name says what they carry. Otherwise the schedule is filed under an ID that does not match the channel in your list, a fix on our side once you send the channel name on WhatsApp. A classic channel without listings still plays; you just lose sight of when the next film starts.

If the channels themselves will not open, the guide is not the problem; go through the IPTVSOSO troubleshooting checklist instead.

When the film you spotted has already started

On channels that support replay, selecting one opens that program from its start, in players that offer it, so a film that began an hour ago can still be seen whole. Replay is requested by the time a program began, so it depends on a loaded guide and a correct clock. Which channels carry it, and how each player shows it, is explained on the page about IPTVSOSO catch-up and replay.

For an older film you would rather not wait for, try the Movies and Series sections of your player instead: the on-demand library, sorted into categories, with series split into seasons.