Guide Refresh is Overwriting Locks

[Lyfesaver 133]

This is an off shoot from this thread but seemed out of place to continue in that thread: 

My TV tuner M3U list's groups, channel numbers and names keep overwriting my Emby locks when I tell the guide to refresh.

As I am building things out with my tuners and EPG I cannot say for 100% certain but I do not think they get overwritten on automatic EPG refreshes.

 

Now I know how to play the game, Luke or someone will ask for specifics and offer a link on how to report a problem. I get it. Absolutely... however I cannot think how to get more descriptive in this case and because i keep my logs set to 'debug' I really don't feel comfortable sharing them on the forums. To that end, as I cant easily offer the extra info needed I am asking these two questions (and sub questions):

1. Is this expected behavior on manual refreshes, and if so -
   1. Why?
   2. Is there some way to make it stop?
2. If this is not expected behavior can anyone reproduce? Steps to repro:
   1. Add M3U list as a tuner in Live TV config (can be a fake list honestly, just needs some data)
   2. Add any EPG data (dont worry about mapping or anything like, just have some guide data)
   3. Edit the tags, channel name and number
   4. Lock tags, channel name and number
   5. Manually refresh the guide data
   6. See if the locks are gone and the changes have been reverted

 

Thank you for reading

[Luke 42077]

HI there, can you please provide a specific example?

How to Report a Problem

Thanks !

 

[Lyfesaver 133]

12 minutes ago, Luke said:

HI there, can you please provide a specific example?

How to Report a Problem

Thanks !

Please tell me you are trolling me.....

[Luke 42077]

I’m asking for you to show an example that can be visualized.

[Lyfesaver 133]

Tell me how and I will

[Lyfesaver 133]

This is the best I can think of but I would not think it adds any new info.

Channel before a guide refresh:

 

Channel after a manual guide refresh

[Luke 42077]

Hi there, please attach the Emby server log from when the problem occurred:

How to Report a Problem

Thanks!

 

[Lyfesaver 133]

To anyone else that might be having this issue, my solution was to manipulate the M3U between Dispatcharr and Emby, like this:

1. Dispatcharr to file every 24 hours
2. File is processed by a script when file is updated each 24h
3. Script removes all channel numbers and tags
4. Emby reads local file

I can now manual refresh the guide or even change the URL params in Emby and my data stays the same. I want it clear tho that the locks on my data are getting beat up and ignored but it just doesn't matter as the file does not contain the fields that keep overwriting things. Null is your friend in this case  

[Luke 42077]

The locks are respected. I think what was happening was the m3u was changing enough to cause the channels to be dropped and then added new again.

[Lyfesaver 133]

I can see where the issue was with me adding/removing channels to the M3U would be the culprit and not the manual refresh as I often do one after the other. That makes sense.

While it does make sense I am sure you can also understand why after someone has gone thru like 300 channels and gave each one a new name, 2-5 different tags (depending on source, location and content) as well a custom sort order and logo that it can be frustrating to have to do it all over again just because 1 channel was removed or something.

I get it, tho. I do. You have to give the M3U the power to change things if it is to work but dammit if this redoing everything does not suck a sausage on a stick.

Thanks for helping to clear all that up.
 

Edited October 3, 2025 by Lyfesaver

[Lyfesaver 133]

This person might have a good idea. Going to try it. Will just manually chmod when I have channels to be added/removed

[Lyfesaver 133]

Wait.....

.... what just happened? Luke, did you do some thing?

(rechecks release notes for last handful of releases)

(looks around to see if he is on Punk'd)

I'm joking. I am sure this is not new at all but I just removed channels from my m3u, changed some EPG mapping and stuff..... told Emby to update and those couple channels are gone, mapping is fixed but none of my channels got renamed this time!! All my tags are the same!!

This is awesome. I can imagine that things might get messed up when I go to add some more here soon as that has to, on some level, rewrite things like you said above. I was really afraid that just removing a couple would cause it to rewrite but turns out you just got to do more aggressive stuff (which I am about to) so this is a nice surprise going forward I dont have to baby it as much as I was thinking.

[Luke 42077]

Nothing changed. My explanation is still the same as before.

[Lyfesaver 133]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Nothing changed. My explanation is still the same as before.

Ya, I figured... thats why I said I was joking

[bruor 43]

I use dispatcharr as the source of truth for Emby.  I'd recommend that you configure the channel groups and names in dispatcharr the way you want them to be.  You can just duplicate the channel if you want it to be in 2 different groups.  

Also,  I feel like I should also share that if you change the tuner properties it will delete and re-instantiate all channels as if they never existed (though I haven't tested this since 4.9 released).  I figured this out when I went from IP to hostname for my m3u the first time,  ended up causing everyone to lose all their favorites.  I believe this also happens if you modify the channel number.

Edited October 22, 2025 by bruor