Kodi Community Forum

Is it possible to set up IPTV Merge on one device exactly how you want it and then copy a file(s) or folder(s) to another device, so that both devices have the same EPG genres, channels and channel numbers - but only need to fully set up Merge on one device?

I currently use Kodi with IPTV channels regularly on two devices, (a Sony Android TV and an Amazon Firestick 4K Max), and to a lesser extent on an Android tablet and an Android "TV box", with a playlist of channels that I made stored on our home media server that Merge is set up on each device to look at. This playlist was made using @matthuisman's Pluto TV and Samsung+ playlists for the UK and US in one m3u, with exact duplicate channels removed, genre categories tidied up, (eg "News", "News & Opinion, and "News + Opinion" all put into one genre: "News & Opinion"), and channel numbers changed to try to avoid duplicates etc.

The problem with this is that the playlist needs regular maintenance - channels come and go etc, and it is becoming very untidy and problematic.

When I first came across Matt's Kodi add-ons, I used his Pluto and Samsung ones and selected GB/UK and US for both. This gave me all of the available channels, but with many exact duplicates, (by which I mean channels showing exactly the same episode of the same programme at exactly the same time).

I then used Merge's functions the hide channels, rename the categories and re-categorise channels, change channel names and numbers etc on one device. Having to do this one channel at a time, and the prospect of having to do the same again on every device that I have Kodi installed on, caused me to investigate alternatives - hence my playlist.

However, if there is a way to set it up on one device and copy that config to other devices, then I would prefer to do that.

So, to repeat my question: is it possible to set up IPTV Merge using Matt's service, (ie Pluto and Samsung), add-ons, edit the channels to my preferences - all on one device, say the Firestick - and then copy the configuration across to my other devices, so that they all show the EPG genre categories and channels exactly the same?

TIA

Copy the userdata folder for IPTV merge. And make sure to install the needed addons as well

Does iptv merge work on kodi 20? I tried to install the zip 0.24 but it says the dependency version 0.0.0 can't be satisfied. Am I missing something?

yes, works fine. You must install via the slyguy repo. You can't install directly

Well I followed the instructions on your website on how to install the directory.. I put the source https://slyguy.uk but it gives me "unable to connect. Couldn't retrieve directory information" error. Is there a different link?

@Japangelo 

Are you following these instructions to install the SlyGuy repository:

https://www.matthuisman.nz/2020/02/slygu...itory.html

I have done it at least a dozen times on different devices, and never had a problem - but it is very important to follow each step exactly, (including letter case).

@Japangelo 

Also, did you remember to enable "Unknown Sources" at the very beginning?

Yes followed every instruction. Unknown sources is on just checked again in case. I thought it could be my vpn but also without i get the same error and I can't retrieve the repo. So I don't know what's happening. I tried it on 2 different devices and I always get the error

Ok I was able to fix the issue 😉

What was the issue??

I remembered that for some reason if I have ah2 skin on, it won't let me add any source.. I just changed to kodi default skin and it worked.. I think I need to do a fresh install to fix that issue with ah2.. It's been a loong time 😂

i recently installed the pvr simple client and iptv merge and it seems to be working very well, thank you for the add on. the only thing i cannot get to work is the epg. i get all my playlists from iptv-org on github and the channels are working perfectly but not the epg. no matter what i do. it is merging all of the epg already provided within the .m3u files provided by iptv-org but it is just not displayed in the guide. the epg.xml file in the add on data is over 1 mb in size and when i open it up i can see all the epg info for my channels but for some reason the guide does not display the info.

am i doing something wrong? am i missing a setting somewhere? any help would be very much appreciated

@billyrene IPTV-Org had problems with Github recently and their EPG repo was taken down for resources abuse, since then, they can't use Github to build their EPG so they have to find a new place or way to do it.

thank you so much for the info. i was going crazy over this   i didn't even think it could be from their end.

@matthuisman 

1. So things were working fine a few days ago when I had used IPTV Merge 0.24.1 on a Nexus 20.0 distro (alexelec 11.1.1 x86 PC) to merge two playlists: Plex Live and Pluto with the IPTV Simple PVR, before v 20.8.1.1 which was single instance.

I thus was able to stream these two playlists (PVR Simple) alongwith channels from PVR TVink (alexelec.tv.)

Edit 2/24/23: I also was able to merge an external playlist using the SendToKodi plugin (yt_dlp) that can process youtube streams, live and VoD.

2. Now I have been on Nexus Kodi 20.1 (alexelec.tv PC x86 11.1.2 version) with IPTV Merge 0.24.1 and the updated PVR Simple, 20.8.1.1.

First I had the problem with auto setup of IPTV Simple, but after a couple of attempts that seemed to work.

3. I then tried to merge 3 playlists: an external m3u8 playlist (all 32 are youtube VOD channels that use plugin.video.youtube) start channel 201, Plex Live start channel 401, and Pluto TV start channel 901. Also PVR TVlink (from AlexElec.tv) has 183 channels (hence the IPTV Merge start from #201) which has always worked.

Initially only PVR TVLink and Pluto TV (from PVR Simple) showed up and played, as channels 1-183, then Pluto started at #184. I checked the IPTV Merge playlist.m3u8 in Kodi addons folder, and found only Pluto TV channels listed. Did a couple of re-merges and now I can see both Plex Live and Pluto TV channels listed in playlist.m3u8.

4. Unluckily I had uninstalled PVR Simple to check for any issues here before running re-merges in IPTV Merge (and constantly now get a message "Installation failed" when I try re-installing PVR Simple v 20.8.1.1 from Kodi repo.)

Edit 2.24/23: The latest PVR Simple Nexus v 20.9.1 zip also fails to install ("...failed due to an invalid structure.")

***5.  The bottomline is that I have been unable to include the external youtube playlist in the merged IPTV Merge playlist.m3u8.

My youtube plugin is working, and the links resolve fine in Chrome browser. Changing back and forth the IPTV Merge start channel setting from default 1 to 201 and back has made no difference, and this doesn't look like a PVR Simple issue (it worked with Pluto TV channels.)

A. So what can I do when I am able to reinstall PVR Simple? 

B. Is there a "manual" method to configure this multi-instance PVR Simple for IPTV Merge playlist (you had mentioned it in this thread with multi-instance PVR Simple)?

Edit 3/23/23: Just  found out the path as: special://userdata/addon_data/plugin.program.iptv.merge/playlist.m3u8

Edit 2/24/23: The PVR Simple v20.9.1 says to not use special:// or resource://, so I am asuming I can just navigate to the correct folder, when I am able to install this !

C. If my external youtube list fails to merge, how would I start another PVR Simple instance to install it separately? What configuration for both IPTV Merge and external youtube playlist instances, besides above path?