XCUI Streams v3.8.6

XCUI Streams v3.8.6 — April 1, 2026

Update summary:

• Scope-aware search: users now select Live/Catchup, Movies/VOD, Series, or All before searching.
• Deterministic results: normalized dedupe+sort pipeline ensures repeatable, stable result ordering.
• Robust networking: configurable net_timeout, net_retries, net_backoff with fallback cache via OPEN_URL for transient errors.
• Search session persistence: query + scope + last result are persisted and restored for smoother UX.

Full change details are recorded in CHANGELOG.md (v3.8.6).

v3.8.5

Version 3.8.5 (2026-03-31)

✨ Added / Improvements

• Favorites: Top-level Favorites now present as three category entries (Live TV, Movies/VOD, Series) showing counts — select a category to view its favorited items.
• Favorites: Favorites are now classified and stored with a category attribute (live / vod / series) to improve grouping and maintain correct ordering.
• Playback: Added per-category subtitle toggles in Settings → Playback (subtitles_live, subtitles_vod, subtitles_series) and the addon now enforces subtitle visibility per-category when playback starts.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed a minor EPG updater typo and added defensive checks around playback start to avoid subtitle/EPG races.
• Various small fixes and formatting/consistency improvements.

v3.8.4: icon fix + release packaging

Version 3.8.4 (2026-03-28)

Added / Improvements

• Mapped resources/media/icon_*.png files to home menu items so the supplied icons are used for Favorites, Recently Watched, Account Info, Live TV, Movies VOD, Series, TV Guide, Catchup, Search, Settings, and Extras.
• Added icon_LAST_PLAYED.png and set it as the fallback for the Last Played home entry to ensure a reliable local icon.
• Set Extras to use a local icon_EXTRAS.png fallback to avoid blocked or unreachable remote assets.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed IndentationError: unexpected indent in default.py by normalizing ART PATHS and removing an unreachable nested try/except in livecategory().
• Ensured the Last Played home item always uses the local icon to avoid UI issues caused by unreachable icon hosts.
• Packaging: created clean release ZIP and published release v3.8.4 (excludes .venv, __pycache__, .git, and .pyc files).

For full details see CHANGELOG.md and README.md.

v3.8.3

Release v3.8.3

Bug fixes

• Fix crash opening Account Information when the panel API returns empty or invalid JSON or numeric fields. The addon now defends against empty/invalid responses and coerces numeric account fields (e.g., active_cons, max_connections) to strings before building UI labels.

Installation

• Download the attached ZIP from this release and install via Kodi → Add-ons → Install from zip file.

Notes

• If you still see errors, please reproduce the issue and attach a fresh Kodi log so I can investigate further.

Thanks for reporting — much appreciated!

v3.8.2

Version 3.8.2 (2026-03-05)

🔄 Maintenance

• Version bump to 3.8.2 for latest release

Version 3.8.1 (2026-03-05)

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed loading spinner staying visible when playing a channel from TV Guide or Last Played

Version 3.8.0 (2026-03-05)

✨ New Features

• Custom EPG / TV Guide — full in-addon EPG window with two-panel layout (channels + programme schedule), category browsing, search for categories and channels, progress bars on currently airing shows, and info panel
• EPG remembers last category — reopening the TV Guide auto-loads the previously viewed category
• Programme click plays channel — selecting any programme in the schedule plays that channel directly
• Live programme info in player overlay — pressing Info (i) during playback shows the current programme title, description, and channel name
• Auto-updating EPG info — background thread refreshes programme metadata every 60 seconds during playback so the info overlay always shows the current show
• Kodistubs for development — added pyrightconfig.json and kodistubs for linter-clean development

🔧 Improvements

• Simplified Last Played — plays immediately without confirmation dialog, no stale show info
• All playback paths (stream, EPG, last played/history) now set programme info and start the EPG updater
• Removed pvr.iptvsimple dependency — EPG is fully self-contained within the addon

Version 3.7.0 (2026-03-05)

✨ New Features

• Favorites — long-press any channel, movie, or series to add/remove from Favorites; new Favorites menu on home screen for instant access to your most-watched content
• Recently Watched History — automatically logs the last 25 streams played (configurable); accessible from the home screen with timestamps; clear from Extras
• EPG Now & Next — live channel listings can now show the currently airing programme name inline (fetched in parallel with threading); enable in Settings → Features
• Multi-Server Profiles — save, switch between, and delete multiple IPTV server credentials from Settings → Switch Server; cache is auto-cleared on switch
• Auto-Resume / Last Played — the last played stream appears at the top of home as a quick-resume item; optional auto-play on first launch per Kodi session (Settings → Features)

🔧 Improvements

• New Settings → Features category for EPG Now Playing toggle, auto-resume toggle, and history size
• Context menu "Add to Favorites" / "Remove from Favorites" on all content items (Live, VOD, Series, Catchup)
• Favorites, history, last played, and profiles persist to JSON files in addon_data
• EPG data cached for 5 minutes to keep channel listings snappy after first load

Version 3.6.0 (2026-03-03)

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed freeze / slowdown when pressing X to stop a stream — the plugin monitoring loop now exits immediately once playback stops instead of spinning for the full 30-second guard window
• Fixed intermittent loading overlay (spinning busy dialog) getting stuck — busy dialog is now force-closed after stream resolve, and a background watchdog repeatedly closes it during teardown
• Fixed Kodi becoming unresponsive on Stop — removed auto-retry logic that fought the stop state; playback teardown now completes cleanly
• Fixed slow stream start — removed ReconnectPlayer double-play and sleep-loop blocking; playback now starts immediately via standard setResolvedUrl
• Fixed UI freeze caused by unreachable channel icon servers — playback ListItem now always uses the local addon icon; icon hosts are TCP-probed before use and replaced with a fallback if unreachable
• Fixed 30-second curl stall on icon fetch — added curlclienttimeout and curllowtimeout to advancedsettings.xml capping all thumbnail fetches at 3–5 seconds
• Fixed intermittent loading overlay race condition — removed sys.exit(0) that caused Kodi to see "script aborted" and retry stream resolution in a loop

✨ New Features

• Persistent file-based content caching for Live TV (30 min), Movies/VOD (60 min), Series (60 min), and Catch-up (15 min) — repeat navigation is near-instant
• User-configurable cache expiry — new Settings → Cache category lets users set separate expiry for Live TV, Movies, and Series (options: 5 minutes → 7 days)
• Clear content cache button in Settings → Cache for instant cache reset
• Persistent icon-host reachability cache — dead icon server results are saved to disk and survive between plugin invocations (re-tested every hour), eliminating repeated TCP probes on each list load
• safe_icon() applied throughout — both addDir() and addDirMeta() now skip unreachable icon hosts in directory listings

🔧 Improvements

• setContentLookup(False) set on playback ListItem to prevent Kodi probing the stream on stop
• Plugin script exits naturally after setResolvedUrl (clean exit instead of forced abort)
• Proper title/description metadata passed to resolve ListItem

Version 3.5.2 (2026-01-28)

• Playback now automatically retries up to 5 times if the connection drops during playback or seeking (improves reliability for unstable streams)
• Version updated in addon.xml and release zip
• All previous features and fixes retained

Changelog

3.5.1 (2026-01-27)

• Extras menu placeholders (Setup PVR Guide, Install PVR Guide, Refresh M3U, Clear Cache) are now visible but disabled in the UI. Only Speed Test is active. Disabled options will show a message if selected.
• Fixed: The version number in addon.xml now matches the release version.

3.5.0 (2026-01-27)

• Fixed and updated the Speed Test feature:
  • Replaced with script.speedtester logic and UI for reliability and modern look
  • Full Python 3 compatibility (threading, XML parsing, bytes/str handling)
  • Added author credit for original script.speedtester
  • Ensured no M3U/provider popups and direct launch from Extras menu
• Fixed M3U popup to no longer appear unexpectedly

3.4.0 (2026-01-25)

• Improved search experience:
  • Search now queries Live TV, VOD (Movies), Series and Catch-up content instead of only Live channels
  • Aggregates and displays results from all sources so no matches are missed
  • Adds colored, visible prefixes indicating the section where each result was found (Live, Movie, VOD, Series, Catch-up)
  • Playable items open directly and return to the search results after playback (no re-opening of the search dialog)
• Quality: safer parsing and fallbacks added when endpoints return non-standard payloads
• Minor: code refactor and performance adjustments for search aggregation

3.3.3.1 (2026-01-25)

• Updated all main icons and add-on icon with user-supplied images
• Repackaged add-on ZIP with new assets
• Version bump and release automation improvements

3.3.3 (2026-01-24)

• Added account expiry checks and notifications
  • On-launch check with non-intrusive notification when expiry is within threshold
  • Optional periodic background checks while addon is open (expiry_notify_background)
  • Configurable interval (expiry_notify_interval_hours) and threshold (expiry_notify_days)
• Moved Test Credentials action into General settings for easier access
• Fixed stray patch markers in tools.py that caused a startup SyntaxError
• Packaging: created clean ZIPs and improved release assets

3.3.2 (2026-01-23)

• Added robust "Test Credentials" workflow accessible from Settings
  • Multi-stage endpoint checker (player_api, panel_api, api.php, get.php, client_area/player_api)
  • Treats HTTP 401/403/512 as invalid credentials and reports clearly
  • Improved network and JSON error handling and helpful dialogs
• Fixed crash on some Kodi versions that lacked xbmc.LOGNOTICE (now handled)
• Added get_working_endpoint() helper and wired it to the Settings test
• Misc: improved logs and packaging

3.3.1 (2026-01-20)

• Removed all Trakt.tv integration (code, settings, documentation)
• Trakt will return as a feature in a future release
• Updated README and metadata to reflect Trakt status

v3.6.0

What's new in 3.6.0

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed freeze when pressing X to stop a stream — monitoring loop now exits immediately instead of spinning 30 seconds
• Fixed intermittent loading overlay (busy dialog) getting stuck on stream start/stop
• Fixed Kodi becoming unresponsive on Stop
• Fixed 30-second UI freeze caused by unreachable channel icon servers
• Fixed slow stream start — removed double-play and sleep-loop blocking
• Fixed sys.exit(0) race that caused Kodi to retry stream resolution in a loop

✨ New Features

• Persistent file-based caching for Live TV (30 min), Movies/VOD (60 min), Series (60 min), Catch-up (15 min)
• Settings → Cache: user-configurable cache expiry for Live TV, Movies, Series (5 minutes → 7 days)
• Clear content cache button in Settings → Cache
• Persistent icon-host reachability cache saved to disk (re-tested hourly)
• Curl timeout limits added (curllowtimeout=3s, curlclienttimeout=5s) to cap thumbnail fetch stalls

🔧 Improvements

• setContentLookup(False) on playback ListItem prevents stream probing on stop
• safe_icon() applied to both addDir() and addDirMeta()
• Added .gitignore to keep release zips out of the repo

See CHANGELOG.md for full history.

XCUI Streams 3.5.2

Version 3.5.2 (2026-01-28)

• Playback now automatically retries up to 5 times if the connection drops during playback or seeking (improves reliability for unstable streams)
• Version updated in addon.xml and release zip
• All previous features and fixes retained

Changelog

3.5.1 (2026-01-27)

• Extras menu placeholders (Setup PVR Guide, Install PVR Guide, Refresh M3U, Clear Cache) are now visible but disabled in the UI. Only Speed Test is active. Disabled options will show a message if selected.
• Fixed: The version number in addon.xml now matches the release version.

3.5.0 (2026-01-27)

• Fixed and updated the Speed Test feature:
  • Replaced with script.speedtester logic and UI for reliability and modern look
  • Full Python 3 compatibility (threading, XML parsing, bytes/str handling)
  • Added author credit for original script.speedtester
  • Ensured no M3U/provider popups and direct launch from Extras menu
• Fixed M3U popup to no longer appear unexpectedly

3.4.0 (2026-01-25)

• Improved search experience:
  • Search now queries Live TV, VOD (Movies), Series and Catch-up content instead of only Live channels
  • Aggregates and displays results from all sources so no matches are missed
  • Adds colored, visible prefixes indicating the section where each result was found (Live, Movie, VOD, Series, Catch-up)
  • Playable items open directly and return to the search results after playback (no re-opening of the search dialog)
• Quality: safer parsing and fallbacks added when endpoints return non-standard payloads
• Minor: code refactor and performance adjustments for search aggregation

3.3.3.1 (2026-01-25)

• Updated all main icons and add-on icon with user-supplied images
• Repackaged add-on ZIP with new assets
• Version bump and release automation improvements

3.3.3 (2026-01-24)

• Added account expiry checks and notifications
  • On-launch check with non-intrusive notification when expiry is within threshold
  • Optional periodic background checks while addon is open (expiry_notify_background)
  • Configurable interval (expiry_notify_interval_hours) and threshold (expiry_notify_days)
• Moved Test Credentials action into General settings for easier access
• Fixed stray patch markers in tools.py that caused a startup SyntaxError
• Packaging: created clean ZIPs and improved release assets

3.3.2 (2026-01-23)

• Added robust "Test Credentials" workflow accessible from Settings
  • Multi-stage endpoint checker (player_api, panel_api, api.php, get.php, client_area/player_api)
  • Treats HTTP 401/403/512 as invalid credentials and reports clearly
  • Improved network and JSON error handling and helpful dialogs
• Fixed crash on some Kodi versions that lacked xbmc.LOGNOTICE (now handled)
• Added get_working_endpoint() helper and wired it to the Settings test
• Misc: improved logs and packaging

3.3.1 (2026-01-20)

• Removed all Trakt.tv integration (code, settings, documentation)
• Trakt will return as a feature in a future release
• Updated README and metadata to reflect Trakt status

Hotfix v3.5.1

Changelog

3.5.1 (2026-01-27)

• Extras menu placeholders (Setup PVR Guide, Install PVR Guide, Refresh M3U, Clear Cache) are now visible but disabled in the UI. Only Speed Test is active. Disabled options will show a message if selected.
• Fixed: The version number in addon.xml now matches the release version.

3.5.0 (2026-01-27)

• Fixed and updated the Speed Test feature:
  • Replaced with script.speedtester logic and UI for reliability and modern look
  • Full Python 3 compatibility (threading, XML parsing, bytes/str handling)
  • Added author credit for original script.speedtester
  • Ensured no M3U/provider popups and direct launch from Extras menu
• Fixed M3U popup to no longer appear unexpectedly

3.4.0 (2026-01-25)

• Improved search experience:
  • Search now queries Live TV, VOD (Movies), Series and Catch-up content instead of only Live channels
  • Aggregates and displays results from all sources so no matches are missed
  • Adds colored, visible prefixes indicating the section where each result was found (Live, Movie, VOD, Series, Catch-up)
  • Playable items open directly and return to the search results after playback (no re-opening of the search dialog)
• Quality: safer parsing and fallbacks added when endpoints return non-standard payloads
• Minor: code refactor and performance adjustments for search aggregation

3.3.3.1 (2026-01-25)

• Updated all main icons and add-on icon with user-supplied images
• Repackaged add-on ZIP with new assets
• Version bump and release automation improvements

3.3.3 (2026-01-24)

• Added account expiry checks and notifications
  • On-launch check with non-intrusive notification when expiry is within threshold
  • Optional periodic background checks while addon is open (expiry_notify_background)
  • Configurable interval (expiry_notify_interval_hours) and threshold (expiry_notify_days)
• Moved Test Credentials action into General settings for easier access
• Fixed stray patch markers in tools.py that caused a startup SyntaxError
• Packaging: created clean ZIPs and improved release assets

3.3.2 (2026-01-23)

• Added robust "Test Credentials" workflow accessible from Settings
  • Multi-stage endpoint checker (player_api, panel_api, api.php, get.php, client_area/player_api)
  • Treats HTTP 401/403/512 as invalid credentials and reports clearly
  • Improved network and JSON error handling and helpful dialogs
• Fixed crash on some Kodi versions that lacked xbmc.LOGNOTICE (now handled)
• Added get_working_endpoint() helper and wired it to the Settings test
• Misc: improved logs and packaging

3.3.1 (2026-01-20)

• Removed all Trakt.tv integration (code, settings, documentation)
• Trakt will return as a feature in a future release
• Updated README and metadata to reflect Trakt status

Release v3.5.0

3.5.0 (2026-01-27)

• Fixed and updated the Speed Test feature:
  • Replaced with script.speedtester logic and UI for reliability and modern look
  • Full Python 3 compatibility (threading, XML parsing, bytes/str handling)
  • Added author credit for original script.speedtester
  • Ensured no M3U/provider popups and direct launch from Extras menu
• Fixed M3U popup to no longer appear unexpectedly

v3.4.0

Changelog

3.4.0 (2026-01-25)

• Improved search experience:
  • Search now queries Live TV, VOD (Movies), Series and Catch-up content instead of only Live channels
  • Aggregates and displays results from all sources so no matches are missed
  • Adds colored, visible prefixes indicating the section where each result was found (Live, Movie, VOD, Series, Catch-up)
  • Playable items open directly and return to the search results after playback (no re-opening of the search dialog)
• Quality: safer parsing and fallbacks added when endpoints return non-standard payloads
• Minor: code refactor and performance adjustments for search aggregation

3.3.3.1 (2026-01-25)

• Updated all main icons and add-on icon with user-supplied images
• Repackaged add-on ZIP with new assets
• Version bump and release automation improvements

3.3.3 (2026-01-24)

• Added account expiry checks and notifications
  • On-launch check with non-intrusive notification when expiry is within threshold
  • Optional periodic background checks while addon is open (expiry_notify_background)
  • Configurable interval (expiry_notify_interval_hours) and threshold (expiry_notify_days)
• Moved Test Credentials action into General settings for easier access
• Fixed stray patch markers in tools.py that caused a startup SyntaxError
• Packaging: created clean ZIPs and improved release assets

3.3.2 (2026-01-23)

• Added robust "Test Credentials" workflow accessible from Settings
  • Multi-stage endpoint checker (player_api, panel_api, api.php, get.php, client_area/player_api)
  • Treats HTTP 401/403/512 as invalid credentials and reports clearly
  • Improved network and JSON error handling and helpful dialogs
• Fixed crash on some Kodi versions that lacked xbmc.LOGNOTICE (now handled)
• Added get_working_endpoint() helper and wired it to the Settings test
• Misc: improved logs and packaging

3.3.1 (2026-01-20)

• Removed all Trakt.tv integration (code, settings, documentation)
• Trakt will return as a feature in a future release
• Updated README and metadata to reflect Trakt status