How automation works
Automation keeps a playlist current and tidy after you set it up once. It has two parts, both in the bar on the left of the editor: Auto refresh reads your provider again, and Playlist settings holds what the playlist does by itself, under Checks & updates.
Auto refresh
An update source is a provider login that M3UTool reads again on a schedule. Each run brings in what changed at the provider:
- New channels, movies, series and groups are added.
- Channels the provider dropped are deleted for good. Channels you delete yourself go to the Bin.
- Your own work stays: names you changed, channels you moved, logos and guide ids. A channel name only follows the provider when you turned on Sync name for that channel, and its logo only with Sync logo.
You do not pick a time. Channels are read several times a day, about every four hours. Movies and series are read once a day. Update now starts a run at any moment. More in Auto refresh.
Playlist automation
Playlist automation decides what a playlist does by itself:
- Check channels: whether M3UTool checks your live channels by itself, and how often. Off, only the checks you start yourself run. What a check does: park the dead channels, add quality tags, a message on Discord when channels die.
- After each provider update: fix channel names, fill in posters and info, match logos, map the guide and refresh live sports. These steps only touch the channels the refresh added. The rest of your playlist is left as it is.
More in Playlist automation.
What else runs by itself
| What | When | More in |
|---|---|---|
| Stream checks | Every hour, or what you picked under How often; never with Check channels off | Automatic checks |
| Backups | About every six hours, on plans with backups | Backups and restore |
| Country guides | About twice a day | Guide countries and sources |
| Live sports | About every three hours, with Auto-refresh on | Live sports |
When a provider refuses
A refresh that fails is not tried again straight away. M3UTool waits 5 minutes, then 15, 30, an hour, two hours, and after that six hours between tries. This is so that a provider that has started refusing gets room to recover: asking every minute is what keeps a block in place. The first run that works resets the wait, and Update now never waits. History on the Auto refresh page shows why a run failed.
What you decide
- Which provider logins are update sources, and which groups they bring in.
- Whether a source runs on the schedule or only when you click Update now.
- Which steps run after a refresh and after a check.