OTT Navigator FAQ

What is OTT Navigator?

OTT Navigator is a video player dedicated to work with streamed and vod content, usually provided by OTT/IPTV providers

Which IPTV service should I use, or which is used by the app?

The app is just a player and neither has any content, nor can provide you any. In order to use it, you need having an IPTV provider and configuring it within the app.

How can I contribute to the app development?

Translate to your language or improve current translations
- Translations are being available online at github (source language supported by developer is English, you can take it as a base).
- Then you choose either:
  - (Github way for tech-ready guys): fork the repository, make your changes and submit a pull request
  - (Easy way for normal people): just download the corresponding xml file (or create a new one taking strings.xml as a base contents), make changes that are required and send it to us via email
Provide high-quality detailed description on the issues you are experiencing, and suggestions you feel will perfectly fit the app.
Suggest common questions and solutions for the FAQ

Installation

How to install

If you are running Play Market device, then use it to install the app
If you are running Huawei device, then use Huawei AppGallery to install the app
Alternatively you can sideload the app

How to install on my Windows PC/Mac

There is no special version dedicated to be used on Windows PC or Mac, however, there is a solution to use the app with negligible side effects. Install NoxPlayer app on your PC - it allows running Android apps and is highly optimized and recommended. Just use it like it was a native app.Some users are running the app on different emulators, like BlueStacks emulator and report that it also works quite well, and supports later Android versions.
Please note, that hardware acceleration might not be available when using emulator, so you might need selecting software codecs to watch your content.

Will the app work on my TV? Why not WebOS/Tizen?

The app only works on Android, so if your TV is running Android TV / Google TV then it will run perfectly. We have investigated the tech and even did some proof-of-concept, but WebOS/Tizen are simply not powerful enough to make a really good app. It’s suitable for simple web pages that pretend to be apps, but lack real power to do complex under-the-hood tasks. So if you choose an LG/Samsung TV (the only 2 major vendors that do not use Android these days) - then it’s highly recommended to purchase an Android / AndroidTV / GoogleTV / Chromecast(2021+ model) / FireTV / etc box or stick to be attached, to make it really smart (not pretending to be one).

Provider (playlist) configuration

Which provider template should I choose?

If your playlist contains something like .../get.php?username=...&password=...&type=m3u_plus&output=... most probably your choice is Xtream Codes template
If the url contains something like /stalker_portal/c/ then you should select either MAC or Stalker portal
If you have a m3u file downloaded from provider, you should either upload it and setup as a Playlist (recommended), or configure as a Playlist File
In other cases configuring as Playlist is generally preferable

What playlist formats are supported

Preffered format is M3U/M3U8
However, the app also supports lots of more exotic formats (the support might be limited though), including WebOS webtv, Tizen nStream, .xspf, .tv, sat .txt, etc

Playlist setup

Your options are one of the following (it’s always preferred to use links over files):

Use a specialized service like m3u4u or m3u.in to upload your playlist and configure a link to it
Use any cloud storage service you prefer. For example, if using Dropbox:
- Copy a playlist file to your personal Dropbox cloud storage
- In a context menu select Dropbox -> Copy Link
- Open a text editor and paste a link there; replace dl=0 to dl=1 in the link (since by default it copies a link to the web page rather than to the file itself)
- (Not recommended) copy file to Downloads directory, so the app will see it. However, file access is being limited in Android from version-to-version, and especially on Android TV devices, so better use any of the cloud storage.
- (For admins) make a web server in the local network that is bind to host “iptv.local” and ensure that your playlist is available by HTTP request to iptv.local/playlist.m3u and the app will auto-detect the playlist
- Also you can setup the player on your phone (not using files, links only!) and then use the backup/restore feature of the app to transfer configuration to your TV/box device!

Getting IP blocked by provider (or 403 error)

These issues might be caused by different provider paranoid flood settings/connection restrictions that can affect access to service. Here are some recommendations if you experience such a problem:

Check amount of connections your provider offers and configure provider parameters to match this value in order to limit picture-in-picture and other advanced modes
Setting stream technology to MPEG-TS (settings - extended; HLS support on xtream codes servers is quite poor)
Disabling video preview (settings - lists - description) and in general limit usage of picture-in-picture and studio mode
Disable video preview for Android TV home screen (if you enabled it) (settings - extended - android tv)
Disable integration with android mediasession and notification (settings - extended - system)
Contact your provider

EPG setup

You can check whatever EPG is provided and alive from your IPTV provider by navigating to Settings - EPG - Reload, and watching the status of reload process (looking for the number of sources processed, each sources processing result).

If your provider has an EPG source but for some reason does not specify it in playlist, then it’s recommended to configure it in Settings - Provider - (your provider) - Parameters - EPG. This way the channels mapping will be searched by both channel names and tvg-id fields. If you configure EPG source in Settings - EPG - User-provided then matching by name is only used.

Want easier way to input characters on my Android TV device (from Phone)

Some of the control apps recommended to serve as a secondary output to your TV/box:

(Android) Android TV Remote Control
(iOS) Android TV

Fail to connect to the portal, however it works well in the other app

First, please check all the data you input for misprints, correct url, etc - usually it just means that your provider requires some additional fields to be passed, like device_id or using some exact user-agent.
If all the data seems correct but you cannot still connect via the app then please record a network dump working with your provider using the different app (stbemu highly preferred):
- Install network capture software (or proxy) like Wireshark, start recording
- Launch an app that works against your provider well (like stbemu)
- Login to your provider, do some actions like list channels or videos
- Stop recording and send the resulting capture file (cap) to the support email of the app, providing details on your provider and connection. It will help investigating the specifics of your provider and will help adding support for it in the future.

General issues

Part of the screen is being cut by my TV (fighting against overscan)

Some TVs are coming with overscan enabled in their configuration (especially for HDMI ports). Possible solutions (better to worse sorted):

Disable overscan on your TV
Configure HDMI port on your TV to be of type PC (this also disables overscan)
Open display settings on your device, and setup it to match your screen (usually named position and size)
In OTT Nav app go to settings - visual style - margins, and set up a margin that matches your TV output.

Want to stream video from phone to my TV, how to do it?

App supports 2 ways of sending a stream to a TV (when both are located in the same WiFi network). Both are not very reliable and cannot be used if your provider requires some DRM tags or specific attributes being passed in addition to the stream url. The options are:

If your TV supports working as WiFi TV (and is acting as UPnP device), while playing video open the menu -> parameters -> send to TV -> select your device. If successful (and the stream supported by your TV) it will start playing on TV and you should stop playing it on your phone not to take extra network connection. Note, that TVs supports only limited set of stream types and might not support the one your provider is offering.
If you are using an old Chromecast device (2020 and older) and have Chromecast devices available in the network there will be a button on HUD to send the stream. This does not apply to newer Chromecast that are actually a Google TV device with Android, so you can just install the app and use it via remote, instead of just casting the stream.

Having multiple providers, how to manage channels?

The app has many options on how to manage channels from multiple providers.
One the best that suits most use cases (when you need max channels from all providers and do not want to mess on them is):

Remove/Hide categories you are not interested in
Group channels (move) them so all channels of the same category (like sports) from all providers are located in the same category
Enable duplicates folding. This way all channels with same or close names (like HD variants will be folded into a single record) If a playback issue will occur the app will automatically switch to the next source (eg folded channel). You can alternatively manually switch between sources. Note, that unless you manually switch the source of the exact channel, the default channel to be used will be the first one in the list if duplicate folding is disabled.

Note, that the app sorts providers alphabetically and applies a list of channels from these providers in the order, providers are. So if you have sorting mode by provider being set, naming a provider alphabetically before others will cause their channels be higher in the list.

Also quite popular is the quick provider switch option that adds a button on the main screen to enable/disable filters by a single/multiple provider you are currently interested in.

Other, less popular, but still valuable options are to disable category merging between different providers, so “Sports” from provider A will not be merged with “Sports” from provider B, creating different categories instead. Also you can enable showing provider name in the channel name (either as a prefix or as a suffix of a channel)

My list of channels messed up when I added a new provider

Providers are sorted and applied alphabetically. So if you had a provider named BBB in the app and made modifications to the groups, channels, etc, and then added a provider named AAA then some of the modifications will apply to the new provider AAA, since the provider list (as being sorted alphabetically) is now AAA, BBB.
To preserve your metadata, ensure that new providers are AFTER the current ones. For example, you can add a prefix to the provider name like 1 BBB, and 2 AAA so alphabetically they will be 1 BBB, 2 AAA and channels/categories from the second provider will not be used for modifications made for the first one.

Time is shown incorrectly on EPG, how to fix that?

Almost always when you see incorrect time it’s incorrect device setting (selected incorrect timezone), so go to the device settings and setup the time and time zone that correctly matches your region.

If this does not help, here are some options available to you to make a virtual time shift:

Settings - Extended - System - Time shift (visual)
Settings - Extended - System - Time shift (system)
(if the issue applies only to the some channels) open problematic channel properties - EPG - time shift
(if using portal) open provider properties - time shift

After any of these changes you need to do manual EPG reload (settings - epg - reload) in order to apply the changes.

How to protect some content from other users (parental control)

There are multiple ways to achive this

Child mode (settings - extended - child mode) allows to specify which exact channels are available and hides all the other contect (PIN-protected)
Restricted mode (settings - extended - restrict) allows you to setup a PIN code and protect settings, provider info, or categories/channels, etc to be available

Want to use Studio mode (up to 9 videos at the same time) or Picture-in-Picture, but cannot find how to enable them

Studio and PiP mode requires you either having multiple providers, or having a provider that allows more than a single connection at the same time. App tries to detect number of connections via provider API, but sometimes might not be able to detect it correctly. To set a number of connections your provider allows manually:

Settings - Provider - (..your provider..) - Properties - Connections

After changing, your will have studio mode option available on the main screen, as well as PiP menu option available from a playback menu screen if these modules are not been disabled. To enable if you previously disabled:

Long tap any icon on home screen - Modules and ensure that Studio and PiP modules are enabled
While in playback, long tap any player menu icon to check if the corresponding menu item has been enabled.

I want to use my own background wallpaper image

You can use any image service you like, here is a quick sample to get idea how to get link to the image:

Go to https://imgur.com/upload and upload your image
You will be redirected to page like https://imgur.com/a/SomeID
Press hamburger icon -> Get share links
Copy the one that is named Share Link (will be something like https://imgur.com/SomeID)
Paste the url in the app

Playback

Buffering way too much

There might be multiple reasons for buffering - starting from poor Internet connection to some firmware specifics. Here comes a list of actions that usually helps if the cause is hardware/firmware, rather than the network issues:

Set buffer size to minimal (settings - player - network - buffer)
Change hardware codecs quality to compatibility (settings - player - codec - hardware quality)
Disable AmLogic fix (settings - player - codec - amlogic)
Change device resolution from 4K to Full HD on your device if not watching 4K usually

If the solutions above did not resolve your issue, then it’s definitely a connectivity issue to your IPTV provider. You should contact him to fix the issue. You can also try setting buffer size to maximum.

Problems with video/audio playback

Since the streams of your provider can be different, your hardware used for playback has different capabilities and your device firmware has bugs, there is no best configuration. App comes with hardware decoders, software decoders, and support for external player, defaulting to software codecs in most cases as being less dependent on firmware bugs.

Please try using these settings in the suggested order and test which works best for you:

Hardware codecs (compatibility mode) - most channels should work, especially if casted via HLS/DASH technology
Hardware codecs (best match mode) - can help supporting original 4k satellite streams
Software codecs (should support almost anything, but will work slower)
External player

App remembers which codec was previously selected for channel and will reuse it in the future (unless disable this in settings)

Horizontal scrolling text is unreadable

When app is using hardware codecs it has no control whatever deinterlacing will happen or not - it’s fully dependant on your device firmware. In order to insist on deinterlacing you should switch the channel to use software codecs that uses one of 3 different deinterlacing algorithms depending on what software codecs quality is selected.

Audio track selection / Subtitles enabling

Sometimes hardware codecs are unable to detect different audio tracks availability (especially in some incorrect HLS streams) and may not support subtitles. In this scenario you can use player menu to switch to software codecs, so you will be able to select a different audio and subtitles track.

Trying PiP / Studio Mode, but app says that connections limit reached

App tries to detect the number of connections your provider allows to protect you against ban by your provider. Some providers do not allow the detector to work so app defaults to a single connection in that case. You can override auto-detected connections limit yourself.
Go to Settings - Provider - (select your provider) - Parameters - Number of connections. Bear in mind, that you still can use multiple screens (PiP / Studio) using 1-connection providers, if you have a couple of them, since each provider is counted separately.

Hostname … not verified / Chain validation failed / SSL error when trying to playback

This error means that your provider is using invalid SSL certificates (either self-signed or without a trusted root). Your solution might be:

Check date and time on your device (if it differs too much from the real time the secure connection to your provider will fail)
Ask provider to either fix the SSL issues or to provide a link to plain http-only configuration
Disable certificate validation within the app:
- Settings -> difficulty -> expert
- Settings -> extended -> system -> ignore invalid SSL
- Restart the app

The app does not see all audio tracks

This usually means that your provider incorrectly encodes the stream (quite common when the provider is using HLS but actually sending all tracks in the same file while they should be split to different ones).

Best option would be to ask the provider to give instructions how to setup one of the following:

get a link that either runs mpeg-ts directly
or ask for multi-hls setup

When it’s not possible, you can also try one of the following:

Use system video codec (it might support multiple tracks when hardware codecs fails to find any)
Use software VLC codecs (it uses more processing power but should in theory support almost any stream, just like external VLC player does)

Playing DRM content and it’s not playing

In order to play DRM-protected contents you need to pass the correct DRM keys and extra data in the playlist. Check the M3U playlist structure on clues how to setup it.
Please note, that DRM playback is only supported using hardware codecs - so using software VLC, system or external player has no way to pass these license data.

Experiencing ENOENT (FileNotFoundException) while trying to play a channel

It is a provider issue meaning that master playlist for the stream contains a link for one of the tracks in invalid format - instead of providing full url to the file with the domain, path, etc, it just only gives the path that is considered a local (like /videos/12345/segment12345.mpg) - of course, there is no such file on your current device.

Premium

How many devices does Premium allow

Premium will be active on all your devices that, as long, as they:

Have Google services working (with Play Store)
Using the same Google account

For non-Google devices, please check FAQ.
PS: Sometimes Play Store takes a while to sync purchases. Check FAQ how to speed up the process.
PPS: Fair use policy is insisted, using same Google Account and using it on tons of devices are a clear violation.

Enable premium on a Firestick (or other device without play market)

Purchased a premium but it’s not active

Sometimes it takes a while for Play Store to sync purchases (due to long caching). Steps to guarantee that sync will happen instantly:

Go to settings - premium - restore purchases. If the process will report that restoration occurred - it means that all is ok, and reactivation has happened. Usually this is the only step required!
Clear data and cache of Play Store app
Clear cache of OTT Navigator app (usually not required)
Reboot your device (might not be needed, but usually triggers cache update for Play Market), and relogin to Play Store
Relaunch OTT Navigator
(if does not help) Reinstall the app
- Backup the configuration (settings - extended - backup - backup)
- Write down the backup code
- Delete the app
- Install the app, restore the backup
- Launch the app
In case it does not help - contact our support (specifying google account used for purchase, or purchase number GPA…)

Unable to process purchase (Error DF-PDP-3)

Recently Play Market stopped processing purchases when the app was not installed from it. Install application from play market and payment should work.

Premium and multiple accounts on a single device

Play Market: When the device has several Google accounts, then it might switch between accounts by Google services itself, meaning that in-app purchases / subscriptions might be taken from one or other account with almost no user control. Best way to reactivate all purchases to correct account:

Uninstall the app (backup is suggested via settings - extended - backup)
Open browser on your desktop PC
Open play market page in your browser
Log in to the web interface of Google Play with the account you used to purchase
Install the app from the browser selecting the device to push the app to

Will the premium purchase work for Family Library?

No, family library only apply to paid apps. Free apps with in-app purchases are not eligible for this. You can still use the app on several devices that share the same account.

Currently subscribed to premium, willing to purchase via single payment forever

The app protects users from purchasing premium while he has active subscriptions (since it might lead to a person having both subscription and purchase), so you should cancel your subscription (it will continue working for the rest of subscribed period). And after some time an option to buy the app using a single payment will become available.

Partnership / Reseller

Branded app with customizations

If interested in whitelabel package (custom logo, background, providers, etc), then contact us via email ottnav.partners@gmail.com or reach us on Telegram (contact @FlavusV)

Preparing devices for other users and wish to hide provider details

You can configure the app and then hide provider details.

Go to the settings - extended, and long press the status line.
You will be asked for a service code (if set) or receive access to service panel, that allows you changing the service code and/or disable provider settings details availability.