EPG guide empty, incomplete or wrong times

The electronic program guide comes from a separate data source than the video streams, so it occasionally needs a nudge. Here is how to fix the three common EPG problems.

Empty guide — force an update

In TiviMate, open Settings → EPG and press Update. In IPTV Smarters, pull down on the channel list or use Settings → EPG → Refresh. The first full download can take several minutes; wait for it to finish before judging.

Guide only shows a few channels

Some international channels simply do not publish guide data. If a whole country group is empty, check that your EPG source URL in the app settings matches the one from your activation email, then update again.

Programs shifted by one or more hours

This is a timezone offset issue. TiviMate: Settings → EPG → Time shift — adjust in one-hour steps until the guide matches. IPTV Smarters: Settings → EPG Time Offset. Set it to your local UTC offset as a starting point and fine-tune from there.

Guide text looks garbled

Non-Latin guide data (Arabic, Cyrillic) needs a player with proper font support. TiviMate handles this best; if you use a different app and see square boxes, switch the EPG language to English in the app settings where available.