Getting started

This is your TiviGlass account, not your IPTV provider login — that comes next. The phone route is far quicker than typing a password with a remote. If you started as a guest and sign in later, TiviGlass asks whether to keep the profiles you already made or start fresh.

Nothing is created until you confirm. Choosing a type, filling in the boxes and running the test all leave your TV exactly as it was, so you can back out at any point — and if you do, TiviGlass asks before clearing what you typed. Everything you have entered also survives a failed test or a failed import, so fixing one field never means retyping the other six.

A TV service is not your TiviGlass account. The account is your sign-in and your plan; a TV service is the provider whose channels you are adding. TiviGlass does not supply or sell channels.

If the test cannot get through, it says which part failed — the address was never reached, or it was reached and your login was refused — because those need different fixes. Where your provider only accepts a particular User-Agent, the test finds a working one and tells you it has set it for you; where you have entered backup addresses and the first one is down, it says which one answered.

You can add as many playlists as you like — multiple playlists are free. Each TV uses one current source at a time, and every TV chooses independently. To change which one you are watching, you do not need Settings: open the sidebar and press the TV service line in the panel header. It lists everything this profile can use, says whether each one is on your account or only on this device, and switching keeps you exactly where you were in the app. The line is only pressable when you have more than one service to choose between. Separate TVs can play at once as long as they are within your TiviGlass account’s device allowance and each provider allows the required connections. Your credentials are encrypted on the device, never stored in plain text.

On a new install, your channels and TV guide start loading automatically. Once your channels are ready, choose Start watching, even if the guide is still updating. Any guide update already running continues in the background. If the guide has not finished, you can retry it from setup or manage it later under Settings → TV guide.

Many providers issue two or more addresses for the same account. They are usually the same service reached by a different name — a spare in case the first address stops working, not a faster one to choose between. So there is nothing to test or compare: enter them all and let TiviGlass handle it.

You can also manage these from your account portal on a phone or computer, under the playlist's Backup server URLs, and they sync to every TV signed in to your account.

Once they are saved, TiviGlass tries each address in turn whenever the one in use stops working, and keeps the one that works as its first choice from then on. It does this when you load or refresh channels (it retries straight away and tells you), during overnight background updates (silently — look under Settings → Help & diagnostics → Recent activity if you want to see it), and while you are first adding the playlist, so an address that is already unreachable will not stop you getting set up.

One thing to expect: if the address dies while you are watching, that channel still stops and you will see the usual playback error — but the app has already moved to your backup behind the scenes, so simply picking the channel again, or any other channel, plays normally.

Your username and password stay the same either way. TiviGlass only switches when the address itself is the problem — a wrong password, an expired subscription, or "too many connections" all stay put, because a second address cannot fix any of those.

Add no backup lines at all if you were only given one address — nothing changes.

The heading on the Switch source list tells you what you actually have. “3 sources” means three copies. “Protected by 1 independent backup” means something stronger: at least one of those copies comes from a genuinely different provider account, so it is still there when the first one is not. Two playlists that turn out to be the same subscription under two addresses, or two resellers passing on one supplier, count as one — TiviGlass will not tell you that you are covered when you are not.

Suggest alternatives is the starting setting (previously called Ask before switching). When a channel stops, Fusion shows at most one brief notice per channel tune. It never opens a dialog or takes focus, and normal retries continue. Open Menu / More → Switch source when you want to choose a feed. Automatic tries closely matched alternatives without pop-ups or success messages. A name and quality label alone are insufficient: there must also be matching guide, declared region/language or logo information, or your confirmation. This is a metadata check, not a live audio/video comparison. Matching starts from the background index; after a failure, Fusion checks a small set of alternatives using local data. It only opens the chosen backup, so recovery still depends on how quickly that provider responds and the picture buffers. Uncertain matches remain in the source list for you to review. Fusion requires Premium in either mode. Existing mode choices are kept.

Some channels are deliberately left out of automatic switching however many copies you own: PPV and one-off events, and 24/7 loop channels. Two feeds labelled “PPV 1” are very often two different events, and a channel playing a box set on a loop is at a different point in it. Those still appear in the Switch source list so you can choose for yourself — TiviGlass just will not choose for you.

A +1 feed is never treated as the same channel as the live one, and neither are two versions of a channel from different countries.

If the list shows something that is not the same channel, open Switch source and choose Keep … separate. If it has missed one, it appears under Possible matches — select it to confirm. Either way the decision sticks, on this TV, for this profile. You can also turn automatic switching off for one channel without changing the setting for everything else.

Nothing is uploaded and nothing is shared. Fusion only ever plays sources you have already added, using your own logins, and it works with no internet connection to us at all. Turn the whole thing off with Switch to another playlist if playback fails → Off, or hide other playlists’ feeds from the list with Show feeds from your other playlists.

It can take a little while after adding a playlist before matches appear — TiviGlass builds the list in the background, when the box is not busy, and the Switch source screen says so while it is working.

A channel’s own guide always wins. Filling only ever happens where a row is blank, and a borrowed listing says underneath where it came from — another playlist by name, or the EPG source it was read from. Nothing is written to your channel: turn the setting off and the row goes straight back to how it was, and a real guide arriving replaces the borrowed one on its own.

Lower settings fill more and get more of them wrong. That is the trade, and it is why the wording says likely and loose rather than just a number. If one channel matters to you, Set EPG channel from its hold-OK menu is still the exact answer — a match you pick yourself is never overridden by any of this.

Live events and 24/7 channels are deliberately never filled from a name match. “Sky Sports Box Office” and the event it happens to be showing tonight look identical to a name, and a wrong schedule there is worse than none.

The matches are worked out when your guide updates, so a channel that is still blank right after you add an EPG source will fill in after the next update of that playlist.

Your phone must be on the same local network as the TV — a guest network usually cannot reach it. The TV and the phone do not have to use the same kind of connection: a TV on Ethernet and a phone on the house Wi-Fi are fine. If your phone is on a VPN, allow it local-network access or turn it off for a moment. Nothing is sent over the internet: the page is served by your TV itself. The page closes as soon as you send it, and always within 10 minutes. If the phone page stops responding before you send it, the TV says the connection ended — close it and choose Use my phone again for a fresh QR code. Sending only fills in the boxes — the phone cannot skip the test or the confirmation, so nothing is saved until you press Add and import on the TV. The review screen also says the values came from your phone, so you know to check them.

Xtream providers normally report a dated expiry or explicitly say that the line has no expiry. Stalker portals also show an expiry date when their account or device profile supplies one. Expiry not provided means the provider supplied no readable date; Expiry unavailable means TiviGlass could not obtain the Xtream or Stalker account details. A missing date does not mean the subscription has ended. Check unavailable describes a failed source check, not a playback failure: channels and playlist updates may still work. The source screen refreshes these checks while open and when reopened, and checks again after a manual update. Network results are cached for up to 15 minutes to avoid repeatedly contacting the provider; a renewal can appear without re-adding the playlist.

Use this when one provider has changed its line-up and you don’t want to wait for every other playlist to be re-checked too — a large provider can take several minutes on its own. Update all at the top of the page still does the lot.

Automatic playlist updates uses your chosen interval for the same data, but refreshes the time-sensitive TV guide first. The guide can update while you are watching; only the heavier channel, movie and show catalogue work waits for playback to finish or for more memory. If a provider cuts a guide download short, TiviGlass retries that guide separately without repeating the large catalogue update. A very large movie and show library is fetched in several shorter passes a few minutes apart, each carrying on where the last one stopped, so no single background run has to hold your provider connection for long and nothing already fetched is downloaded twice. If any of your sources is a Stremio source, a Stremio section at the bottom of the same page has an Addons row that opens its addon list directly — you no longer have to go through the source’s own manage sheet to reach it. Under the interval you will find Last update, per source: when each TV source last updated, and whether its automatic updates have been failing. A source that has failed several times in a row says so, with the reason; one that has been paused says when it will try again and reminds you that Update works straight away regardless. Android schedules background work approximately, so the start time can be a little later than the selected interval. The timer also waits while the device is offline.

If a playlist’s channel and guide downloads both fail several times in a row — a provider that has gone dark, a box that runs out of memory part-way through, or an update Android keeps stopping before it can finish — TiviGlass pauses the automatic channel, movie and show update for that playlist only, and says so under Recent activity. It keeps updating that playlist’s TV guide throughout, leaves every other playlist alone, and tries the catalogue again by itself a few hours later. Nothing is deleted, and pressing Update on the playlist starts it again immediately.

Updating a playlist does not switch to it. Whatever you were watching keeps playing and your active playlist stays active, so you can refresh a spare line-up in the background.

Your own changes are kept: favourites, watch history, renamed channels, hidden channels, custom groups and your channel order all survive an update — it only replaces what the provider sends.

If you switch to or remove a playlist while an update is running, that update is cancelled first and any data it already saved is kept. Your selection then continues automatically.

One exception: an M3U list you imported from a file or pasted text has no address to re-check, so Update will say so and point you at Edit connection to pick the file again.

This is not the same as hiding a group. Hiding takes a group out of your lists and keeps everything downloaded; unticking it here means it is never downloaded at all, so it is the one that shortens the wait, uses less storage and puts less load on a slow box.

What you already have stays. Turning something off stops future downloads; it does not delete anything. Use Clear downloaded movies & shows when you want the space back. Your favourites, watchlist and viewing history are kept either way and reattach if you download it again.

Anything left out is not searchable, because it is not on the TV to search. Turn a group back on and update if you want it back.

Groups your provider adds later are brought in unless you untick them, so a new sports section does not silently go missing.

You can keep at least one group per kind. To bring in none at all, use the Download movies & shows switch instead — that is the control that says what it means.

Up to 8 profiles per household. Each one keeps its own favourites, watch history, watchlist, reminders and personal display settings. A deleted profile stays recoverable for 30 days under Recently deleted.

Sections you don’t have — or that a profile isn’t allowed to use — simply don’t appear. You can reorder, rename and hide sidebar entries later (see how-to 50). By default, opening Live TV, Movies or Shows slides this same panel horizontally to that section’s groups; the TiviGlass heading, account details, clock and divider stay fixed. Back returns it to the main menu, so no second sidebar is added.

Back always undoes exactly one step, in the order you took them: an open film or series page first, then the groups panel, then the sidebar itself. Closing the sidebar is treated as a cancel, so it never counts toward leaving the app — only Back from a section with nothing open does that, and it tells you (“Press Back again to exit”) before the second press. Remotes that repeat a held button, and some HDMI-CEC setups that send a burst of presses, cannot skip a step: presses that arrive within a fifth of a second of the last one are ignored, so one press means one step even on a remote that stutters.

When you open a film or series from Home, Search or the Sports Hub, Back returns you to that screen — with your search text and position intact — rather than dropping you into the Movies or Shows list. Jumping to the TV guide from a Search result works the same way: it is a visit, so one Back puts you back in your results rather than opening the sidebar. If a section disappears while you are using it (a profile change, a hidden section, or a plan change), TiviGlass moves you to the closest section still on your sidebar and says so, instead of silently jumping to the top. Switching TV service closes an open film or series page, because that item belongs to the service you switched away from; TiviGlass tells you that too.

If a live channel is already playing in the TV guide preview when you switch service, it keeps playing until you select a channel from the new service — so you can browse the new line-up without the picture stopping first.

When a section is opening, a short loading message identifies what it is preparing. Longer waits show placeholders; if a read stalls, use Try again where offered. A failed read shows a retry message instead of leaving the placeholders running. Recordings shows your library, scheduled timers and series links as each becomes ready. Movie and show placeholders follow your poster-size setting, and reduced motion keeps the loading shapes still. Reduced motion (Android’s own Remove animations setting, and lower-powered boxes automatically) also holds the LIVE badge’s dot and the padlock on locked features still, and a long channel or programme name in the TV guide scrolls once when you focus it instead of scrolling for as long as you stay there. Indicators that show work in progress, such as spinners and the dot in an update banner, keep moving.

Every one of these can be reassigned — see how-to 51. Number and colour keys are especially worth mapping if your remote has them.