A channel or film will not play

Almost every playback failure is the stream, not the app. This page is about telling which is which.

First: does anything else play?

• Nothing plays at all → the account or the connection.
• One channel does not, the rest do → that channel, or its format.
• It plays and then stops → the connection, or your provider’s edge server.

What to try, in order

1. Press Retry on a phone or Try again on a television once. When the app is already counting down to its own retry, the button says Retry now or Try again now and skips the wait.
2. On a live channel, press one of the Try buttons on the error screen, or Versions in the player: another version of the channel often comes from another server. On a television, Pick another channel opens the list.
3. If a channel plays but freezes, use Restart channel in the player, see Restart channel.
4. Switch the engine for what you are watching: Player settings → Player engine on a phone, Options → Player engine on a television, or the green key on an Android TV or Fire TV remote. If the other engine plays it, set it in Settings → Player → Engine for live channels (channels) or Player engine (films). Windows, the Mac and LG and Samsung TVs have one engine.
5. Stop whatever else uses your account: another device, a download, a recording, multiview.
6. If nothing helps, report it, see Reporting one.

HTTP 403 and 509

These come from your provider and mean too many connections on your account. Most accounts allow one or two.

The usual causes:

• Something else is already playing, another device, another app, or a multiview cell.
• A download or a recording is running.
• A previous session has not been released yet by the provider’s panel. Waiting a minute is sometimes all it takes.

When two of your devices play on an account that allows one stream, the provider keeps one of them and drops the other. The device that lost the stream does not take it back over and over: it says Your provider allows one stream at a time and they are all in use, and Try again takes it back when you want it.

Nothing in the app can work around this. It is what you are paying your provider for, and the number of simultaneous streams is part of it.

HTTP 405

Some accounts are allowed one stream format only, usually MPEG-TS, and the provider answers any other format with 405. The app remembers which format a playlist refuses and stops switching to it, and on an iPhone, an iPad and an Apple TV, whose own player cannot read that format, such channels start on the VLC engine by themselves.

“This channel is off air right now”

The provider answered with a web page instead of the picture, while other channels of the same playlist play. The channel is switched off at their end. The app says so once instead of reconnecting forever.

HTTP 401, 404, 410

Wrong credentials, or the stream no longer exists. If the whole playlist gives 401, your subscription has lapsed or the password changed, fix it in the playlist’s edit screen, and see changing the login.

HTTP 502 and other 5xx

Your provider’s server. These are often regional: the same file can play from one country and fail from another. A single 502 in the middle of a film usually recovers on its own; if it keeps coming back, the provider is the one to ask.

“Unable to parse TLS packet header”

You typed https:// on a port that speaks plain HTTP. Use http://. The app never adds https:// on its own, precisely because most panels answer plain HTTP on their stream ports.

It plays, but there is no sound

Usually AC-3 or E-AC-3 audio, which some players decode and some do not.

• On Android, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, switching to the VLC engine usually brings the sound.
• On Windows and macOS the system decodes neither, and the app takes care of it as it plays. You get picture, sound and a working seek bar.

If a channel is silent on one engine, switch the engine in Settings → Player → Player engine and see whether the other one has it.

Sound but no picture

A black or white picture with the sound playing means the engine in use cannot show the picture of that stream on this device, often with a 4K channel.

1. Switch the engine: Player settings → Player engine on a phone, Options → Player engine on a television, or the green button on an Android TV or Fire TV remote.
2. If the picture comes back, keep it that way: Settings → Player → Engine for live channels for channels, Player engine for films.
3. On the VLC engine, if the picture is still missing, turn off Settings → Player → Hardware decoding for that device.
4. Try another version of the channel with Versions; a lower quality often plays where 4K does not.

On an iPhone, iPad and Apple TV with the engine on Auto, a channel that plays sound over a black screen moves to VLC by itself after a few seconds. Windows, the Mac and LG and Samsung TVs have one engine, so there only another version of the channel helps.

The picture is torn, green or blocky

A broken hardware decoder on that device for that codec. On the VLC engine, turn off Settings → Player → Hardware decoding; on the built-in engine, switch to VLC first. Turn Hardware decoding back on when you move to another device.

A channel from a home tuner never starts

Channels from a tuner such as an HDHomeRun, Freeview channels in particular, used to hang on the default Android player and play only on VLC. From version 1.8.2 they start on the default player too.

“The app’s data on this device is damaged”

Rare, and it means the app’s database file itself was damaged, usually by the device losing power or running out of space mid-write. The app offers to rebuild it: your playlists and the guide download again, favourites, history, groups and your other changes are kept wherever they can still be read, and if you are signed in your account brings back the rest. The rebuild happens the next time the app opens.

It buffers constantly

That is throughput, and it has its own page: Slow starts and buffering.

What the app already tried before it told you

Before any error screen appears, the app has already tried again on its own, and on Auto it has also tried the other engine. The screen means all of that failed. While it shows, the app may still be counting down to one more try of its own, which the message says.

That is also why Try again now is worth pressing once: a provider that refused a moment ago often accepts a fresh connection.

On a phone the error screen ends with Back, which returns to where you started the channel or film. On Windows and the Mac, Back there also leaves full screen first.

An episode of a series will not play

The error screen of an episode offers other copies of the same series that have the episode and open it, see When an episode will not play.

Reporting one

Settings → About & legal → Report a bug opens an email with diagnostics already attached. Add the exact message on the screen, the channel or film, and roughly when. See Reporting a problem.