Fixing common playlist problems

Most playlist problems come from a handful of causes. Work through the symptom you see. Before changing anything, keep a copy of the original file, or make a backup in M3U.Click.

Names show strange characters

Symptom: names like é instead of é, or question marks and boxes instead of Arabic, Cyrillic or Chinese letters.

Cause: the playlist was saved in one character encoding and read in another. An .m3u file has no fixed encoding, and players guess. VLC, for example, reads an .m3u file that isn’t valid UTF-8 as Latin-1.

Fix: save the playlist as UTF-8 with the .m3u8 extension. If the names are already damaged in the file, open the original file again (not a copy saved by a player) and convert that.

Entries won’t play

Symptom: the player skips entries or reports that it can’t open them.

Causes and fixes:

• The file moved. Paths still point to the old location. Fix the start of the paths, or switch to paths relative to the playlist. See relative and absolute paths.
• The playlist moved to another device. C:\Users\… paths don’t exist on a TV box or a NAS. Rewrite them the way that device sees the files.
• Wrong slashes or letter case. Linux-based devices need / and treat Music and music as different names.
• The online source changed or stopped. Addresses can change or stop working. Check with whoever provides the source.
• You need permission. Some sources need a sign-in or subscription, or only work in their own apps. M3U.Click can’t and won’t get around that.

Names and extra details are ignored

Symptom: the player shows file names or addresses instead of the titles in your playlist.

Cause: the first line isn’t exactly #EXTM3U. Some editors add an invisible byte-order mark (BOM) before it, or a blank line.

Fix: make sure #EXTM3U is the very first thing in the file and save as UTF-8 without a BOM.

Groups or logos don’t appear

Cause: attributes such as group-title and tvg-logo, and lines such as #EXTGRP, are conventions that not every player supports. VLC 3.0, for example, ignores #EXTGRP.

Fix: check what your player supports. M3U.Click keeps all of these details when it saves, so you can use the same playlist in several players.

The same entry appears several times

Duplicates creep in when playlists are merged. The same address may appear with different names, or with small differences such as a trailing slash or upper-case letters in the host name. M3U.Click’s duplicate finder (coming with the editor) groups likely duplicates and lets you choose which one to keep.

The playlist opens as text in the browser

When you click a playlist link, the browser may show it as text instead of downloading it. That depends on how the server labels the file. Save it with your browser’s Save as command, then open the saved file in M3U.Click or your player.

Only one entry, with strange #EXT-X- lines

That file is probably an HLS playlist: it describes one stream cut into short segments, with lines such as #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION. It isn’t a list to edit. Add its address as a single entry in your own playlist. See the format reference.

Mixed line endings

A file edited on different systems can end up with a mix of Windows (CR LF) and Unix (LF) line endings. Players accept both, but some simple tools stumble over a mix. M3U.Click keeps the style your file already uses when it saves.

Still stuck?

Email support@tibrcode.com and describe what you see. Please don’t send the playlist itself if it contains passwords or private addresses.