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…this is a goodwill project… it’s all FREE
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. We also see multiple implementations all over the internet now on Github and other Open Source platforms. Satellite or IPTV players ‘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 and the costs we have we could keep it running fine without donations. But thanks to donations we managed to move to a dedicated server on a dedicated internet connection, making features like Crazy EPG Web possible? So yeah, we’ll do a lot better if we keep getting donations, as we still have some GREAT plans for future features. (Like an API :))
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 Web service?
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: 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 20 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 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 20 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 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 Crazy EPG users we would then use our database to still retrieve older EPG data, so they should rarely notice this….
Crazy EPG Web 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: Yes you can, we only limit by the number of downloads
Q: Can I share my personal EPG file 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 400 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 400 channels, and donating users up to 1000 channels.
Q: You say you process all files at 18:00, but mine was processed a LOT later?
A: We created 16 queues for all donating users and 2 queues for all FREE users. Meaning all donating users will be processed parallel to each other, on multiple queues. For all FREE users there are only 2 queues and so it will go a lot slower… 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 1000 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 1000 channels but needs to be 400 channels, only the first 400 channels will be processed. In case a new donation would be made it would automatically switch to 1000 again. If you prefer not to donate and stay at 400 you probably better upload a new config, so at least you have the 400 channels you really need instead of a cut-off file of the bigger list you had before…
Q: Is there also a 20x/day download limit on personal EPG files?
A: For the moment we put this on 30x/day and will see how people behave. If it can stay this way it will… (30x/day for all registered users and 150x/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 my personal EPG for over 30 days and now it seems to a very old file?
A: To keep our database and entire system clean we stop generating a file that hasn’t been downloaded for 30 days. We will keep your config ready for another 60 days in case you decide to come back. Because you just tried to download it, but noticed it was an old file, you triggered our database and set the last download date to just now, and so next time it’s generating time, we WILL generate it again for the next 30 days. So tomorrow there should be a fresh and good file for you. Donating users could trigger this faster by logging in to Crazy Web, and just uploading their config again (as we always process immediately every donator’s upload)
Q: I haven’t used my Crazy EPG Web for over 90 days and now it seems my registration is GONE?
A: To keep our database and entire system clean we remove all users from our database that haven’t downloaded their personal EPG file for over 90 days. By removing them from the database all info is gone, including their config. Donators could prevent this because we will never delete anything as long as the donation is still running. So if you think of it, keeping to donate would keep your account and config forever…
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 can in our Crazy EPG Web app. Each channel has a pencil next to it. There you can click “What’s On Now?’ that will show you a current list, adapted to your detected browser time zone. So although the info is actually in our database in GMT time, we ALREADY adapt it, just like your tv player would, to the correct time zone so it displays correctly. ONLY IF that is STILL NOT OK, you could go into the time offset window and add some time like one hour “+0100” and you will see all times jump to that new offset. If you now go on and save and close that config, we will process that channel each day AND also shift the time the way you liked it. And not in a stupid way by just playing with the time zone, we leave the time zone at GMT and ACTUALLY shift the time!
Q: I see in my log file the country I chose doesn’t exist? / Why do you have a message not to translate your browser at the login page?
A: If you translate your browser from English to Turkish, the country we call “Turkey” will change to “Turkiye” and will look fine to you… But when sending your uploaded config back to our server, we ignore it for being a country we don’t know…… :)) So you should NOT translate your browser!
Q: Why does your EPG selector report errors when selecting channels?
A: These are probably channels in your saved configuration that were loaded after logging in, but don’t exist anymore…
So you need to un-check those and as you do remember you need to find a replacement for each one, so I suggest one by one
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