Setting up the programme guide (EPG)

Setup · 5 min read · Updated 2026-09-26

The programme guide turns a wall of channel names into something you can actually browse. It also fails in confusing ways — almost always for reasons that have nothing to do with the player.

Turning it on

1. Open Settings — Navigate to Settings from the home screen.
2. Find Programme guide — The option is described as “Show program guide information”.
3. Turn it on — The app will begin fetching guide data for the active playlist.
4. Give it time on first load — Guide data for a large playlist is big; the first fetch is the slow one and is then cached.

Once loaded, the guide is cached on the device, so later launches are quick. You will see "Loading programme guide…" only while a fresh fetch is happening.

Where the data comes from

This is the part that surprises people: the guide is not produced by the player. It comes from your provider, alongside the playlist. Luma Player requests it, parses it and displays it — but it cannot invent programme information that the provider does not send.

So a guide that is empty, partial or wrong is, in the large majority of cases, telling you something about the provider rather than about the app.

Why the guide is empty

• The provider sends no EPG at all. Common on cheaper lines. There is nothing to display and no setting that changes it.
• The provider sends EPG for only some channels. Also normal — you will see a guide on the main channels and nothing on the rest.
• Channel IDs do not match. Guide data is linked to channels by an identifier. If the provider's playlist and their guide file disagree, programmes cannot be attached to channels. This one looks exactly like a bug and is not.
• It has not finished loading. On a first run with a very large playlist this genuinely takes a while.
• No playlist yet. The app will say so directly: "Add a playlist to view the guide."

Getting more from it

With the guide on, the channel list stops being a phone book. You can see what is running now, decide from the grid rather than by zapping, and — if you are on an Xtream playlist — jump back to something that has already aired. Catch-up needs Xtream; here is the difference.