In this FAQs section we will try and give an answer to the most common questions. If this still doesn’t help you, don’t hesitate to contact us!
General Questions
Q: Where do all these TV Guides come from?
A: Thanks to 2 brilliant developers: Aleksandr Statciuk (Freearhey) for providing the tool epg-grabber and Kivanc Altug (Kvanc) for providing the tool Tempest EPG Generator. Both tools will extract TV Guides from multiple sources with their provided siteconfig files. Afterwards we sort, combine, make statistics, verify the generated files with our own created tools. Anyone could do exactly the same using their tools and should not need this website.
Q: So why does this website exist if nobody needs it?
A: 1. For some TV Guides it will take up to 18 hours each day to process, doing this for multiple websites will probably even take longer. This will be a load on your PC, internet connection, and will limit the possibility if you can actually reboot your system or turn it off. We run a 32 CPU, 128GB RAM server on a dedicated 1Gbit connection to do just that. 2. Websites and configs change and will need constant maintenance to keep running, we do that for you. 3. If suddenly thousands or people would start using these tools all to grab exactly the same thing from these TV Guides, it will become a load on those websites and nobody would enjoy that. The providers would have a slow TV Guide, normal people wanting to see the guide would get a slow surfing experience, people like us grabbing the site would get extra slow grabbing or would get blocked. It’s no use we do this all together at the same time to get exactly the same data. Let us grab it for you so you can just download the end result here for free…
Q: When will I be able to sign up for your as-a-service solution?
A: We launched Crazy EPG 0.8 on August 21st 2023. Download it and register in the program
Q: I don’t want TV Guides, I’m looking for IPTV Channels?
A: You are mistaken, we have nothing to do with IPTV. Our TV guides can be used for whatever purpose you need them. Satellite or IPTV ‘could’ be possible, but we don’t have IPTV channels for you….
Q: Why do you claim to be FREE but ask donations?
A: We shouldn’t need donations. The way it is right now could keep running fine without donations. But we want to move to a server with incredible speeds and unlimited downloads and remove the download limit. We want to re-write the software for Web/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS. We want to buy code signing certificates for our software…etc… So it would all get a lot better in case we would have donations…
EPG Guide Questions
Q: I don’t see my country in your list of possible countries?
A: Contact us and we’ll try our best to add your country
Q: I did find my country, but it seems like some channels are missing?
A: Contact us and we’ll investigate to see if we can add those channels
Q: Why do you have multiple guides for the same country instead of just a single big one?
A: It would be very time consuming for us to generate one big file, and hard for you to download each time. Smaller EPG files work better and faster with your players.
Q: Why would I need to combine different guides into 1 single file with your Crazy EPG software or as-a-service solution?
A: It would be the smallest and fastest file possible, you will notice this in your player software as loading times would be dramatically reduced. Also some players only support usage of only 1 file
Q: The timezone of your file doesn’t match with the TV program that’s currently playing?
A: We generate all TV Guides on GMT time. Normally your player should adapt the TV Schedule to match your local time.
If you really still need to change it, you will be able to in all the upcoming versions of Crazy EPG
Q: When I want to see the channel list for strange languages (like Chinese) the file is all messed up?
A: This is because of encoding. Press ALT to get the menu of your browser, go to view and choose Repair Encoding
Q: If I download a file more than 5 times a day I get an error saying I’ve hit a limit, why is that?
A: Some stupid people were updating their EPG files every minute! This resulted in 400GB of (useless) data a day.
We only update each file once a day, so you should only grab it once as well, we recommend after 18:00 and before midnight CET
Q: I used and configured one of the EPG guides correctly but still the guide shows up empty, why is that?
A: There could be multiple reasons why. First of all it’s possible the source where we got the EPG from didn’t have anything listed for your channel for today. Second it could be that the information for that channel would be the same for all day, so one big show for the duration of all the day, that would error because we wouldn’t be possible to determine the end time of that single show. Third, after downloading a file 5 times the 6th time you try to download it, it would possibly put the error message you would normally get in a browser into the XML file and so there are no shows in your latest XML file, resulting in an empty guide. Once more a reason why we strongly recommend to only grab the EPG info once a day, after 18:00 and before midnight CET
Q: My EPG guide was working perfect for some specific country, but now suddenly all channels show up empty?
A: Maybe we messed with the config file…. We try to not change them if possible, but sometimes we really need to. That could result in the name of a channel being slightly different, and because you linked it already to the old name, you would have to update this manually so it’s again the correct name… we apologize…
It’s also possible, if you are using our free EPG files, that the file is ‘rotten’ as in ‘hasn’t been updated for 2 days’, and since it only contained 2 days of guide it now turned empty for you. As soon as we resolve the issue and it starts working again, your guide should start working again as well. For donating premium users we would then use an older file but with longer EPG data, so they should rarely notice this….
As A Service Questions
Q: At what time do you process my custom file?
A: We start generating all personal files at 18:00 CET in a queue, when we do yours really depends…
We like to wait until 18:00 CET because we want all guides to be finished for that day, so you get a fresh file
Q: Can I share my login credentials with family or friends?
A: We designed the licensing to be bound to a single computer/user. As soon as you would do that your friend would be able to use the software, but you wouldn’t anymore…
Q: Can I share my custom file download link with family or friends?
A: We want you to be able to use that file across multiple devices or even when you’re on holiday, so YES, this would be possible. We do monitor the amount of usage and would notice if you shared this link publicly (for example for everyone to use on the internet). If so, we would disable the account…. So as long as this stays among family or close friends we don’t mind.
Q: Why can I only choose 200 channels to upload?
A: Some people were just adding 15 countries completely resulting in a file of over 100MB. As all FREE users are in the same process queue that would be terrible for all other waiting jobs to process. Hence, we adapted the program that FREE users can choose 200 channels, and donating users up to 500 channels.
Q: You say you process all files at 18:00, but mine was processed a LOT later?
A: We created 8 queues for all donating users and 1 queue for all FREE users. Meaning all donating users will be processed parallel to each other, on multiple queues. For all FREE users there’s only 1 queue and so each job will be processed one after another… that’s why we call this LOW priority.
Q: How much do I need to donate for HIGH priority?
A: Anything actually…. We first wanted to put this on 4 or 5 euros per month, but then thought of all the people in the world that would have trouble paying that each month. So we chose to put it on ANY amount as you see fit… Thank You for Donating!
Q: Can I try HIGH priority before I actually start paying for it?
A: Well…. you could just give a single donation of the lowest amount…. that would give you 1 month of HIGH priority, and would automatically switch back to low priority after a month.
Q: What if I configured an upload config of 500 channels on HIGH priority, but stop donating and switch to LOW?
A: Our processing software will check each job to see what your priority is. If your file has 500 channels but needs to be 200 channels, only the first 200 channels will be processed. In case a new donation would be made it would automatically switch to 500 again. If you prefer not to donate and stay at 200 you probably better upload a new config, so at least you have the 200 channels you really need instead of a cut-off file of the bigger list you had before…
Q: Is there also a 5x/day download limit on personal EPG files?
A: For the moment we put this on 20x/day and will see how people behave. If it can stay this way it will… (20x/day for all registered users and 100x/day for all registered and donating users)
Q: My EPG guide was working perfect for some specific country, but now suddenly all channels show up empty?
A: Maybe we messed with the config file…. We try to not change them if possible, but sometimes we really need to. That could result in the name of a channel being slightly different, and because you linked it already to the old name, you would have to update this manually so it’s again the correct name…
Don’t forget to also verify your config in Crazy EPG, if the names changed that means your uploaded config contained names that are no longer valid. When we process your personal EPG file these names would just get ignored. By creating/updating your config to the new correct names and re-uploading that new config, we would start processing it correctly… afterwards you would still need to map/link them correctly again in your TV Player…we apologize…
Q: I haven’t used Crazy EPG for a while, nor the XML file, but now I see it no longer gets generated?
A: If you haven’t downloaded your personal EPG link XML file in over 30 days we will stop processing it automatically. To re-activate it you just have to download it once and we will start processing it again the next time it’s 18:00 CET.
Q: I haven’t used Crazy EPG for over a year and now it seems my registration is gone?
A: To keep our database and entire system clean we will do an annual clean-up. All accounts and uploaded configs will be removed after a full year of no activity… so no new config uploads or personal EPG link XML file downloads. You can just register again and make a new config, like a new and fresh user. In case your Crazy EPG software complains because it still knows the old account, go into register and choose to erase all locally stored info from your PC. Close the app, re-open it and register.
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