FAQ & Settings

How much video the app loads ahead before and during playback. It's a trade-off between speed and stability:

• Low latency — starts fastest, switches channels quickest, but is more likely to briefly stall on a shaky connection.
• Balanced (default) — a good middle ground for most connections.
• Large buffer — loads much more ahead, smoothest on a slow or unstable line, at the cost of slower channel-zapping and a longer initial load.

If you get frequent stutters or rebuffering on live TV, try Large buffer first.

How far behind the true live edge the player deliberately stays: Low = 10s, Normal = 20s (default), Safe = 40s. A bigger cushion means the player has more buffered video in reserve, so it's less likely to stall — at the cost of being further "behind" real-time. If live channels stutter a lot, try Safe.

• Fit (default) — shows the full picture, with black bars if the aspect ratio doesn't match your screen.
• Fill — stretches the picture to fill the whole screen (may look slightly distorted).
• Zoom — crops the picture to fill the screen without stretching it.

They control whether the app uses your box's dedicated hardware chip or a software (CPU-based) decoder for video and audio. Auto is hardware-first with an automatic fallback if something fails — the right choice for almost everyone.

Audio decoder defaults to Software, not Auto — some TV boxes' hardware AAC decoder mangles 5.1-channel audio into crackling sound. Software decoding sidesteps that. This never affects AC3/E-AC3/DTS audio, which always plays through hardware passthrough regardless of this setting.

Set Audio output to "Stereo downmix". Some Android TV boxes (notably Amlogic-based ones) have a hardware AAC decoder that handles 5.1-channel audio badly. This option properly mixes the 5.1 audio down to stereo instead of letting the broken hardware path touch it — you'll still get full surround-encoded audio (AC3/E-AC3) untouched, only plain AAC 5.1 is downmixed.

When on, the app matches your TV's screen refresh rate to the video's actual frame rate (e.g. switches to 24Hz for 24fps film content, 50/60Hz for TV broadcasts) instead of always using your screen's default rate. This avoids the small stutter ("judder") you get when a 24fps video plays on a 60Hz-locked screen. Works best on Amlogic-based boxes. Off by default since not every TV/box handles the switch cleanly.

A technical option that hands video frame timing directly to the hardware decoder+display path for smoother audio/video sync — mainly relevant on Amlogic boxes. "Auto" currently behaves the same as "Off" (we intentionally don't auto-enable it, since it can affect playback stability differently per device). Only turn it to On if you specifically want to try it and know what to look for if playback misbehaves.

How long the app waits for your IPTV panel to respond before giving up: Normal = 30s, Patient = 60s. If your provider's panel is slow to respond (common with some resellers during peak hours), Patient gives it more time before showing an error instead of failing fast.

Some IPTV panels redirect a stream URL from http:// to https:// (or back) before serving the actual video. This setting (on by default) lets the player follow that kind of redirect. Leave it on unless you have a specific reason to turn it off — most panels need it.

If the player's first-choice decoder fails to even start for a given stream, this lets it automatically retry with a different decoder instead of just failing. This is separate from the app's built-in black-screen recovery — the app always watches for a frozen/black picture during playback and force-restarts using software decoding when that happens, regardless of this setting.

You need a standard WireGuard .conf file from your VPN provider (Mullvad, Surfshark, NordVPN/NordLynx, and most others that support WireGuard all generate one). Logging in with just a username/password isn't supported — only a pre-generated .conf file.

1. Open the VPN tab and tap "+ Add tunnel".
2. Give it a name (anything you like).
3. Either tap "Import .conf file" to pick the file from your device/box, or paste the config text directly into the "…or paste config" box.
4. Tap Save tunnel. If the config is malformed, you'll get an "Invalid WireGuard config" error immediately — otherwise it's saved and ready to connect.

That's the standard Android "This app wants to set up a VPN connection" system dialog — every VPN app on Android has to ask this, it's not specific to AbyssIPTV. You only need to approve it once per device; after that, connecting doesn't ask again.

No — only one tunnel is active at a time. Turning another tunnel on automatically disconnects whichever one was previously active.

Off by default. When turned on, the VPN reconnects automatically to whichever tunnel you last used, every time you open the app — and disconnects about 20 seconds after you leave the app (it stays connected if you're just in Picture-in-Picture). Note: the very first connection still needs to be started manually once, since Android's VPN permission prompt can't be shown automatically in the background.

Yes — the config (including the private key) is encrypted at rest using Android's hardware Keystore (AES-256-GCM) before being saved on the device.

Some ISPs throttle IPTV/streaming traffic specifically, even without a VPN. Hysteria2 is a protocol designed to disguise and resist that kind of throttling, routing just this app's streams (and its own API calls) through a local proxy connection to a Hysteria2 server — unlike the VPN feature above, it doesn't affect any other app on your device or box.

• Server host and Port (default 443) — from your Hysteria2 server/provider.
• Password — required, your Hysteria2 auth password.
• SNI (optional) — only needed if your server's TLS certificate uses a different hostname than the server address itself.
• Obfuscation password (optional) — an extra layer of traffic disguising ("Salamander" obfuscation) on top of TLS, if your server supports it.
• Pinned cert SHA-256 (optional) — only needed if your server uses a self-signed certificate rather than one from a trusted certificate authority. Leave blank otherwise.

Go to Settings → Parental controls → Set PIN, enter a 4–6 digit PIN twice to confirm. This automatically turns on "Lock adult categories." Categories your provider flags as adult (or whose name contains an obvious adult keyword) will then require your PIN before you can browse into them, on the Live channel list and the programme Guide.

No — once you enter the correct PIN, adult categories stay unlocked for the rest of that app session. The lock re-engages the next time you fully close and reopen the app.

Category selection on the Live channel browser and the programme Guide. It currently does not filter app-wide Search results, Favorites, or Continue Watching rows — an adult item can still surface there. Keep that in mind if you're relying on this as your only safeguard.

Yes — only a SHA-256 hash of your PIN is stored, never the PIN itself.

When on (default), movies and episodes pick up where you left off if you stopped more than 5 seconds in, and your position is saved every few seconds while watching. It doesn't apply to live channels. Separately, a "Continue watching" row on the home/browse screens always shows your in-progress movies and episodes, independent of this toggle.

• Playlist refresh — how long your channel/movie/series lists stay cached before the app re-fetches them from your provider's panel in the background (1–24h). A "Refresh playlist now" button in Settings forces an immediate full refresh at any time, regardless of that interval.
• EPG refresh — separately controls how often the "now/next" programme-guide information is updated in the background (1–12h). The app also auto-refreshes the guide for your favorite channels and the last channel you watched every time it starts — not the whole channel list, to avoid hammering your provider's panel. A "Refresh EPG now" button in Settings forces an immediate refresh of that same set on demand.

Use "Guide time offset" in Settings (± up to 12 hours) if your provider's guide data is off by a fixed number of hours from your local time — a common issue with some panels. This shifts the displayed programme times (and which programme is shown as "on now") to match reality.

Android TV only. When on, the app jumps straight into the last live channel you watched as soon as it starts, instead of showing the home/browse screen first.

Go to Settings → Subtitles and add a free API key from opensubtitles.com (Consumers section of your account). Without a key, subtitle search is off. With just the key, you can search and download subtitles anonymously.

No, not for basic use — the API key alone is enough. Adding your OpenSubtitles username and password as well raises your daily download quota (per OpenSubtitles' own account tiers), but isn't required.

Free gives you the full IPTV player. Pro additionally unlocks the VPN, the anti-throttle proxy, and Jellyfin & Plex media server support. A Pro key is a one-time lifetime payment, works on up to 2 devices — see Buy a key.

Pick the armeabi-v7a build on the Downloads page — older boxes like the Formuler Z10 can't install the arm64 build. Not sure which your box is? The universal build works everywhere, just a larger download.

The Pro app checks for updates automatically and can install them itself (Settings → Check for updates). Sideloaded Free builds don't auto-update — reinstall from the Downloads page for a newer version, or install from Google Play instead for automatic updates.

Get in touch via the Support form — describe what you're seeing, which device/box you're using, and we'll help you sort it out.