Guide data

IPTV EPG — why the guide is blank, and how to fill it

A channel that plays with no schedule beside it is the most common IPTV setup question there is, and almost always one of four causes. Here is what the guide actually is, where its address goes, and how to fix each failure without reinstalling anything.

Updated 25 October 2026 6 min read 24-hour trial · no card

The guide is not part of the stream

An EPG — electronic programme guide — is schedule data: titles, start and end times, descriptions, and the channel each entry belongs to. It travels separately from the video. That separation explains the single most confusing thing about IPTV setup: a channel can be perfectly watchable while the guide beside it is completely empty. The stream works, the metadata does not, and the two are fixed in different places.

The data itself is published as XMLTV — an XML file listing programmes, each tied to a channel by an identifier. Your playlist labels channels with a tvg-id; the guide labels programmes with the same id. Where the two match, the guide appears. Where they do not, you get a working channel with nothing written next to it.

Two ways the guide arrives

	Xtream Codes login	M3U playlist
Setup	Server URL, username, password	One long playlist URL
Guide source	Fetched by the same API — nothing else to enter	A separate XMLTV URL, sent in the same email
If you skip it	Guide fills in automatically	Channels load, guide stays blank
Refresh	Incremental, handled by the player	Player re-downloads the whole file on its own schedule

This is the practical reason the Xtream login is the default recommendation on a Stick or a TV: one fewer field to mistype on a remote, and the guide comes with it. The playlist route is fine on a desktop, where typing a long URL is not an ordeal.

Where the URL goes, by player

Player	Where to paste it	Worth knowing
TiviMate	Playlist settings → EPG → Add EPG source	Supports several guide sources and per-channel overrides; the most flexible of the free-tier options
IPTV Smarters Pro	Settings → EPG → Add EPG URL	Separate field from the playlist, and it is easy to leave empty on the M3U login screen
Kodi	PVR IPTV Simple Client → EPG settings → XMLTV URL	In the same panel as the playlist; set both or the guide stays empty
VLC	Not supported	VLC plays streams, not schedules — use it to prove a URL works, not to watch television
Smart TV (SS IPTV)	Settings → Content → EPG URL	Long URLs are better uploaded from the app's web panel than typed with a remote
Apple TV (iPlayTV)	Playlist → EPG URL	No shared clipboard from a desktop; the tvOS keyboard is the bottleneck

The four reasons a guide is blank

Work through these in order. The first two account for the overwhelming majority of empty guides, and neither requires reinstalling the app.

The guide URL was never entered. With an M3U login the playlist and the guide are two different addresses, and only one of them is on the login screen. If your welcome email has an address ending in .xml or .xml.gz, it has a home, and it is not the playlist field.
The channel ids do not match. A playlist built with type=m3u rather than m3u_plus carries no tvg-id at all, so there is nothing for the guide to attach to. Reload the playlist with the fuller format and the schedule appears.
The player has not refreshed. Guide data is downloaded on a schedule, often every few hours, and sometimes only on a manual refresh. Force it once before concluding anything is broken.
The file is compressed and the app cannot read it. A .gz URL works in most mature players and fails in some TV apps. Swap to the uncompressed address if one was provided.

When the guide is there but an hour out

A schedule that is consistently early or late is not bad data — every programme shifted by the same amount is an offset. Players that carry a timezone or GMT offset setting expect you to set it once; when a country changes its clocks, that setting is what breaks. Look for it before you go hunting for a new guide URL, and expect it to affect the whole list rather than individual channels.

One channel wrong, everything else right

That is a mapping problem, not a settings problem. The channel's tvg-id does not exist in the guide — usually a regional variant or a feed the guide does not carry. TiviMate and Kodi both let you assign a guide entry to a channel manually; Smarters largely does not. Fix it at the channel level, not the file level.

Why the guide also decides whether catch-up works

Catch-up television — the ability to play a programme that aired yesterday — is driven by the guide, not by the stream. The player looks up the programme, finds the channel, and requests the archive window for that time. No schedule means no catch-up, even when the provider offers a seven-day archive. This is why a page about a blank guide ends up fixing a feature people did not realise was related.

Keep the guide small if your device is small

A full seven-day guide for tens of thousands of channels is a large file, and low-power devices — a two-year-old Fire Stick, an older smart TV — parse it slowly. If the guide takes minutes to open or the app dies while loading it, trim what it holds: reduce the days of data where the player allows it, or load only the channel groups you actually watch. A smaller guide that opens instantly is more useful than a complete one that freezes the box.

Questions about this

What is an EPG in IPTV?

The electronic programme guide is the schedule data that sits beside the channel list: what is on now, what starts next, and for how many days ahead. It is separate from the streams. A playlist tells the player where the video is; the EPG tells it what the video is, which is why a channel can play perfectly with an empty guide underneath it.

Why does my IPTV guide show no information?

One of four things: the EPG URL was never entered, the channels in the playlist have no tvg-id that matches the guide, the player has not refreshed since you added it, or the guide file is compressed and the app cannot read it. Check them in that order — the first two account for most cases.

Do I need an EPG URL if I use Xtream Codes?

Usually not. The Xtream API returns guide data alongside the channel list, so a player set up with server, username and password fills the guide itself. If you set up with an M3U playlist URL, the guide is a separate XMLTV address from the same welcome email, and the playlist will load without it.

Why is the guide showing the wrong time?

Guide data carries a timezone; your player applies an offset on top of it. A programme that starts an hour early or an hour late is an offset setting, not bad data — look for a timezone or GMT offset option in the player and set it to your region. Daylight saving changes are the usual trigger for it appearing out of nowhere.

What does XMLTV mean?

It is the file format guide data is published in — an XML document listing programmes with start and stop times, a channel id and a description. Providers send a URL ending in .xml or .xml.gz. The .gz version is the same file compressed, which loads faster but is not supported by every player.

How many days of guide should I expect?

Two to seven days is normal. Anything longer is usually padded with generic descriptions. If you see only a few hours, the provider refreshed the guide recently and it has not filled in yet — most servers rebuild once a day, and the player only picks up the change on its own refresh cycle.

Does the EPG work on a smart TV app?

Only if the app supports a guide at all. Many built-in TV players show a channel list and nothing else. Smart TV users usually get a proper guide by installing a dedicated player rather than relying on the one that came with the television.