This plugin renames, moves and can permanently delete channels. Before using it, make a backup of your Dispatcharr database.
Probes every stream behind your channels with ffprobe, records what it finds, and lets you act on
the result.
It answers three questions per stream, and keeps them apart because acting on the wrong one deletes channels that work:
- Alive. The stream plays. Resolution, framerate, codecs and bitrate are recorded and synced back into Dispatcharr so the channel menu can show them.
- Dead. The stream does not play, or it plays but shows nothing worth watching: a blank picture, a frozen picture, silence, or a fixed-duration placeholder file. Those last four are opt-in.
- Skipped. The checker could not judge it. That covers a provider rate-limit response, a
radio station with no video track, and hosts
ffprobecannot read at all. Skipped is never treated as dead, so nothing destructive touches a stream that was merely throttled.
A channel is judged by all of its streams, never by one of them. Most channels carry a primary and one or more backups, and Dispatcharr fails over between them. A channel is only reported dead when every stream failed, so one dead backup never marks a working channel for deletion.
Other things it does:
- Scheduled checks, including overnight windows that pause at a set time and resume where they left off on the next window.
- An HTML report written to
/config/iptv_checker/report.html, grouped by what you should do about each finding, and optionally emailed through the Newsflasharr plugin. It is one self-contained file that fetches nothing from the internet, so it reads the same in a mail client and on a television browser, and it follows a light or dark theme on its own. - CSV export with a full settings preamble, so every run leaves an audit record.
- Rename, move, restore and delete actions, each with its own confirmation.
- Self-healing: a channel that comes back to life is renamed back and moved to its original group automatically.
- Dispatcharr v0.20.0 or newer, with channels and groups already configured.
ffprobein the container.ffmpegas well if you enable blank-screen, frozen-video or silent-audio detection.pytzfor the scheduler, which is normally already present.
docker exec dispatcharr which ffprobe
docker exec dispatcharr which ffmpegNo API credentials are needed. The plugin runs inside Dispatcharr with direct database access.
- Log in to Dispatcharr and go to Plugins.
- Click Import Plugin and upload the release zip.
- Enable the plugin.
To update, delete the old plugin in the Plugins page, restart the container
(docker restart dispatcharr), then import the new zip. Your settings are preserved.
- Set Channel Groups and Channel Groups Mode. Leave the box empty to check every group.
- Click Validate to confirm the plugin can see your groups. It reports how many groups will be checked.
- Click Load Groups, then Start Check.
- Watch View Progress, then read View Results or Email Report.
Full user guide covers every setting and button, the detection modes, scheduling and windowed runs, the HTML report and email delivery, and troubleshooting.
Calver 1.26.{DDD}{HHMM}, being the UTC day-of-year and UTC hour-minute, matching the Lineuparr,
Channel-Mapparr and EPG-Janitor plugins. Releases before 1.26.1081815 used semver.
Issues and pull requests are welcome. When reporting a problem, please include your Dispatcharr
version, the relevant container logs
(docker logs dispatcharr | grep "IPTV Checker"), and the exact error text.
Contribution steps, the CI gates, and how updates reach the Dispatcharr plugin marketplace are in DEVELOPMENT.md.
This plugin makes bulk changes to your channel database, including permanent deletion when you enable it. Test on a small group first, keep a database backup, and read what an action says it will do before confirming it.
MIT. See LICENSE.