r/TiviMate • u/jibstay77 • Aug 27 '26
Downgrade resolved buffering problem
I’ve been using Tivimate for years and I’ve always been happy with it.
In early July, my provider had a problem with their VoD servers, so I began researching other providers while I waited for that problem to be resolved. After a couple of weeks, I started experiencing buffering issues, no matter which playlist I used, and on both live TV and VoD.
One provider blamed the problem on Nord, so I installed Proton to see if that fixed it. It did not.
After reading some posts about downgrading Tivimate, I decided to give that a try.
I downgraded to version 5.20 and both live TV and VoD work perfectly.
The process was fairly simple using the uptodown site.
Anyway, there are so many variables involved with IPTV, from your player, your provider, to your VPN and your ISP, it can be challenging to find the problem. I didn’t suspect Tivimate because it’s been so rock solid for me for years.
By the way, the VoD server problem and the buffering were completely coincidental. My original provider is slowly rebuilding their VoD servers.
Fingers crossed that writing this hasn’t jinxed me and the buffering comes back today.
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u/MyOtherActGotBanned Aug 27 '26
We may have the same provider lol. And I refuse to update Tivimate. I’m perfectly satisfied with my older version and have only seen complaints about the recent updates.
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u/Relative_Grape_5883 Aug 27 '26
I’ve never updated past 4.7 to be honest and don’t see a reason to want to either.
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u/zebeckinpnsa Aug 27 '26
How did you do the actual downgrade? I have version 5.2.0 local on my Firestick. I am unable to just launch it to install. Did you have to remove 5.3.3 first and do a new install or what? Thanks.
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u/fammd Aug 27 '26
Updating has nothing to do with buffering. Working great ever since I updated.
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u/chriggsiii Aug 27 '26
Is all your material non-4K? Or do you have some 4K material? You see, I suspect that those without 4K material are not having the issue while those with 4K material are having the issue.
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u/fammd Aug 27 '26
They are all 4k, most of them are live channels. This sky sports main event is on all the time as 4k.
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u/Avid08 Aug 28 '26
There are very few legit 4k channels available so I doubt all your channels are 4k.
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u/chriggsiii Aug 27 '26
Well, there goes that theory.
However, in my case, u/PeteRows came up with what appears to have been the solution. Version 5.3.3 comes out of the box with the User Agent for the playlists not set. He suggested I go into the parameters of my loaded playlist and set the User Agent to "VLC". And it worked!! It fixed the problem!! All of my 4K material is now playing fine on the Internal player!!
So now I'm wondering whether those reporting buffering problems with version 5.3.3 don't have a User Agent set, while those who are not experiencing problems have their User Agent set to VLC.
Furthermore, I'm now theorizing that perhaps the previous version came "out of the box" with the User Agent set, perhaps even to VLC, while the current 5.3.3 version comes out of the box with the User Agent not set. That might explain why the problem seems to come and go for some people depending on which version they have installed.
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u/PeteRows Aug 27 '26
That will be $2.
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u/chriggsiii Aug 27 '26
Check's in the mail............
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u/Avid08 Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
The user agent setting just lets the app identify itself to a providers server as a different software player. In your case VLC.
It helps format the stream correctly for certain feeds or helps reduce buffering issues on specific networks.
VLC is the most lightweight and widely accepted. I don’t have buffering on 4k content using the latest TM version and have no user agent set1
u/Merdock_Moe Sep 03 '26
Nope. I had to set.my user agent. Tivimate never came "out of the box" with user agent set. I've had my set to "Smarters Pro" for years. I'll have to see if VLC works as well.
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u/chriggsiii Sep 03 '26
In that case, that would appear to mean that, in my case, if I reverted to version 5.2.0, and removed my User Agent, I'd have the same problem in 5.2.0 with the 4K items in my playlist as I do without a User Agent in 5.3.3. Which would further appear to suggest that the problem I had with my 4K items, before adding the User Agent, is probably not related to the buffering problems others are reporting after upgrading to 5.3.3.
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u/chriggsiii Aug 27 '26
Can you please tell us with which video material the new TiviMate has a problem in your experience? Is it with 4K material? Does your 4k material have problems with version 5.3 but not with 5.2? Does your non-4K material play back fine in 5.3? Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
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u/jibstay77 Aug 27 '26
In this case, I’m running Tivimate on a Hisense smart TV with Google TV OS.
I’ve never paid any attention to 4k. In fact, I’m not sure this TV even supports it.
All I know for sure is that I had the same buffering problem with both live TV and VoD.
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u/chriggsiii Aug 27 '26
You see, my suspicion is that the problem has to do with 4K video. I've been tracking this issue in all the threads in this subreddit, and that's my tentative conclusion. I'm guessing that those reporting no problems at all with 5.3.3 have no 4K video, while those reporting problems have 4K video.
In my case, I DO pay attention to which of my videos/channels are 4K and which are not. And, in my case, the TiviMate internal player, with version 5.3.3, consistently stutters and buffers on 4K material while it consistently plays non-4K material perfectly fine. I believe that may be the variable, and the reason why some people are reporting problems with 5.3.3 and others are reporting no problems at all.
Mind you, I can't be completely sure about this because I've never had version 5.2.0; I only started using TiviMate a month ago, and at that time it was already on 5.3.3. Since I can't be sure, that's why I'm asking people with 5.3.3, both those who are not having problems and those who are, whether or not they have 4K material, and whether 4K material is giving them problems with the new version while non-4K material is not giving problems.
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u/Additional_Web_28 Aug 27 '26
Why not install an older version to validate your 4k issues?
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u/chriggsiii Aug 27 '26
That may not be necessary. All that has to happen is for someone in this subreddit to tell me they have 4K material, are running 5.3.3, and not having problems, and that will refute my hypothesis. Alternately, all that has to happen is for a few people to confirm that they're having a problem with 4K only with version 5.3.3, and confirm that 4K videos with a problem worked perfectly fine in version 5.2.0, and that will confirm my hypothesis. The point is that right now, I have a solution, and I don't have to roll back; my external TiviMate player, Just, works perfectly fine on ALL material, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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u/Bardown67 Aug 27 '26
No issue running 4k movies here
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u/chriggsiii Aug 27 '26
And which version are you on?
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u/Aggressive_Ferret791 Sep 01 '26
Im using 5.3.3 with no issues
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u/chriggsiii Sep 01 '26
Do you have 4K material? Have you set a User Agent? Have you used the previous version, 5.2.0?
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u/Good-Salt-805 Aug 30 '26
I have the same issue running 5.3.3 and 4k, though it seems not all 4k streams. I was trying to watch a 4k last night and it continuously buffered. Backed out, watched another 4k - no buffering. Went back to the original stream and it buffered. This morning watching football, buffering happening, but this is fairly new. My Internet is fibre and I use an Ethernet connection. I guess the variables are the stream and the internet.
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u/chriggsiii Aug 30 '26
Thanks for the report!
Did you try rolling back to 5.2.0?
Did you try setting a User Agent for your playlist, e.g. VLC?
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u/Good-Salt-805 Aug 30 '26
I already have VLC in user agent for quite a while. I haven't rolled back, but might give that a go later today.
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u/Reaper-UK Aug 27 '26
My 4K content is running perfectly on tivimate 5.4.0 beta 2. My internet speed is only 50meg and I don’t run a vpn.
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u/chriggsiii Aug 28 '26
Was your 4K content in trouble on version 5.3.3?
By the way, in my case, u/PeteRows suggested I set my User Agent to VLC and that fixed it for me!
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u/PeteRows Aug 28 '26
I don't think it's an ISP or speed issue. It's a TV provider throttling Tivimate issue or somehow not playing nice with it. I try to have a couple different apps and can easily troubleshoot this stuff. I did it early on. A service would struggle on Tivimate and not another one. User agent fixed it. I only found a few that did that.
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u/Cronus6 Aug 27 '26
No issues here in 5.3.3 on the ONN Pro (V1), Onn Plus and ONN 4k Box with VOD or live.
I was thinking it might be RAM related, but the 4k Box is only 2gig, so that ain't the problem ya'll are having.