v5.9.5

Three new free sports and local-news sources, a dozen more free networks, one set of channel numbers across the Default feed and the main playlists, an external tuner API for FastChannels Player, and FastChannels Player 5.2.15.

Channel numbers and feeds

• One set of main numbers (#88). The Default feed, /m3u, /m3u/mixed, /m3u/gracenote and the master bridge playlists now share one number per channel. Before this, a channel could show four different numbers depending on where you looked. On upgrade, the master playlists take the Default feed's numbers once. Feed playlists, including Default, don't change. If your Default feed is off, the master numbers are kept instead.
• Locks live on the Channels page. Lock All and click-to-lock in the feed editor are gone. The Channels page gains a Locked filter and a bulk Unlock Numbers action. The Ch# column is now "Default #", and hovering a number shows the channel's number in each feed.
• Source order (#88): a feed can list sources to number first. They get its lowest numbers in that order, then every other source by name. Saving a changed order offers to renumber, and the Order preview shows the result first.
• Sort by category, then name in Order & Numbers (#90).
• Channel type filter (#88): all channels, bridge only, or standard only. A bridge-only feed picks up new DRM channels from any source on its own.
• Event channels skip review (#83): new event channels go straight in, even on sources set to review new channels, so a game isn't over before you approve it. You can turn this off in Settings → Feeds & Guide.

New sources (free, off by default)

• NCAA: NCAA.com's 16 always-on 24/7 channels (by sport, plus Classic Games, Legends of March and One Shining Moment) and live championship games as event channels, filtered by sport and division. No login, clear HLS.
• Northeast Sports Network: free live New England college and high-school games (NESCAC, NEWMAC, CNE, NEPSAC, Vermont and New Hampshire schools) as event channels, filtered by sport and school. Pay-per-view games are left out.
• Gray Local News: Gray Media's local TV station streams. Pick stations from 112 markets, and each adds its newscast, 24/7 weather and breaking-news channels. InvestigateTV and Local News Live are always included. Clear 720p.
• NCAA and NSN games play in the browser guide player too.

Free Networks

• Heartland+: about 40 channels, including Heartland, The Doctors, Retro TV, Hasbro Legends, Rev'n and Stingray's music, Naturescape, Qello and Just for Laughs channels.
• Shout! TV: Shout! TV, MST3K, Johnny Carson TV, The Carol Burnett Show, ALF, Farscape and The Bold and the Beautiful.
• TrillerTV, Bowling TV (PBA) and Watch AEW.
• Adult Swim, Bally Sports Live and Hallmark are now networks inside Free Networks rather than sources of their own. Upgrading moves their channels in place, keeping the same channel ids, numbers, locks, Gracenote IDs, enabled state, play URLs and feed selections. If any of the three was on, Free Networks is turned on with only those networks ticked.
• Sources page: a new Direct from Networks group under Free Sources lists Free Networks, Gray Local News, NCAA, Northeast Sports Network, PBS and C-SPAN. In Lite mode, each group's off sources are tucked behind an "Off · N sources" toggle.
• TrueTVplus, Flou TV and OG Network channels on MediaTailor now play (they answered 504 to clients). Cineverse's The Ed Bassmaster Show plays again. The stream audit checks Free Networks streams with each network's headers and marks a stream that keeps answering 5xx as dead.

FastChannels Player 5.2.15 and bridges

• Player 5.2.15: SEC Network, ACC Network, ABC and SEC+/ACCN Extra events no longer fail with "Trust anchor for certification path not found" on Fire OS and Google TV. FastChannels also prefers a Disney/ESPN CDN edge those devices already trust (forum #3722, #3732).
• Player: streams that switch between clear and encrypted periods (server-inserted ads on Amazon Sports) stay on one secure decoder instead of dropping frames at each switch (#85). The Player also publishes what it's playing in its media session, so controllers without adb can see it.
• External tuner API (#94): tuners that control their own devices and HDMI encoder, such as APITuner, can list the Player bridge channels, get what to tune and fetch the guide without adb. Turn it on from the Bridge page's new External tuners card, which generates the token. See docs/external-tuner-api.md.
• ah4c "Set up ah4c for me": fills in an existing ah4c's settings through its config API (FastChannels scripts, this server's address and the tuner list). It shows every change first and restarts ah4c when needed. It asks for the address Channels DVR uses to reach ah4c, and never writes a Docker-only or loopback address.

Fixes

• Roku: follows The Roku Channel's move to app.roku.com. Every play had been failing with "Expecting value: line 1 column 1".
• Pluto: new Route playlists through FastChannels option (#92, off by default). It fetches playlists with the channel's region, so viewers outside that region get real ads instead of Pluto's looping error slate, which also made mpv reset at every break.
• TV provider phone-link sign-in: when a network doesn't accept your TV provider (MyOutdoorTV with Cox, for example), the error says so and lists the providers it does accept, instead of a bare "400 Client Error" (#72).
• Custom channels: a YouTube video that isn't live is refused with a clear message, instead of being saved as a channel that crashed Channels DVR.

Upgrading

No manual steps. On first boot the database adds its new columns, moves Adult Swim, Bally Sports Live and Hallmark into Free Networks, and copies the Default feed's numbers to the master playlists once.

The FastChannels Player bridge offers the 5.2.15 update on the Bridge page.

docker compose pull && docker compose up -d