Bug adding Live TV channels & Tuner setup

Live TV & DVR
1

Server Version#: 1.41.9.9961
Player Version#:
Tuner Make/Model:
Guide/Lineup name:
Using XMLTV?:
Channel number/Name:

It looks like there is a limit to the number of Live TV channels which can be added because at the moment Plex is passing each channel in a single request’s URI. When the length limit of the URI is reached, Plex can’t send the list of channels and fails with the error “There was a problem saving channel mappings. Please try again.”. In the logs, we can see the true error “Request URI too large; currently at 40952”.

Others have mentioned this issue on Reddit and here in this forum.

This is a pretty big problem for people using Plex primarily for Live TV & DVR. Can we get this fixed? Or is this number of channels simply unsupported?

Reproduction steps:

  1. Open Live TV & DVR settings
  2. Click “Set Up Plex Tuner”
  3. Click “Have an XMLTV guide on your server? Click here to use it.” for a Tuner with a sufficient number of channels (910 is sufficient for me, probably less would work)
  4. Provide an XMLTV guide for all channels
  5. Click “Continue”
  6. Ensure all channels have their corresponding “EPG CHANNELS” selected and that they are 1-to-1
  7. Click “Continue”
  8. The “There was a problem saving channel mappings. Please try again.” error will show up and the corresponding error logs should appear.

Logs:

Aug 02, 2025 18:34:22.018 [138252002474808] Debug — Request: [<redacted>:36794 (Subnet)] PUT /media/grabbers/devices/1?title=My%20Guide&enabled=1 (7 live) #3c0da GZIP Signed-in Token (<redacted>)
Aug 02, 2025 18:34:22.019 [138252108036920] Debug — Completed: [<redacted>:36794] 200 PUT /media/grabbers/devices/1?title=My%20Guide&enabled=1 (7 live) #3c0da GZIP 1ms 499 bytes (pipelined: 16)
Aug 02, 2025 18:34:22.046 [138252105927480] Debug — Request URI too large; currently at 40952
Aug 02, 2025 18:34:22.046 [138252105927480] Debug — Request: [<redacted>:36792 (WAN)] OPTIONS /media/grabbers/devices/1/channelmap?channelsEnabled=<lots_of_channel_mapping> (7 live) #3c0d0 Signed-in
Aug 02, 2025 18:34:22.046 [138252105927480] Error — Error parsing HTTP request: 01%5D=1401&channelMappingByKey%5B1402%5D=1402&channelMapping%5B1402%5D=1402&<lots_of_channel_mapping_by_key>
Aug 02, 2025 18:34:22.046 [138252105927480] Debug — Completed: [<redacted>:36792] 400 OPTIONS /media/grabbers/devices/1/channelmap?channelsEnabled=<lots_of_channel_mapping> (7 live) #3c0d0 0ms 265 bytes

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Edit: There is a workaround to the channel limit. It requires dividing your channels up into multiple virtual tuners so no single tuner has more than 455 channels and adding all of them to Plex, but it’s complicated and time consuming.

2

I’m not sure if it is officially documented anywhere, but it used to be that there was hard-limit of 480 channels for a Plex live TV configuration. It’s mentioned several times in these forums, but I just checked the support docs and don’t see it referenced.

Plex doesn’t support IPTV, where you’d normally see these high channel counts. (I know some cable TV packages can approach this, but these can typically be whittled down by eliminating shopping channels and such.)

Can you check to see if that’s the actual limit for you (by testing with 480 and 481)?

4

I have 678 channels. Seems they either changed it or broke the way it added the channel mappings as they map and add just fine in version 1.41.6.9685 which I believe is from May of this year. Any versions after that I seem to get an error setting up the channel mappings.

Once you get the tuner setup with channel mappings in the older version, the newer versions can be updated and the channels all work just fine. Only issue is if you needed to delete the pvr and resetup the tuner, you would have to go back to the old version again.

5

It’s also happening to me at 466 channels. Frustrating to advertise this feature but not even support channels up to your supposed limit. Especially, when you have paying customers.

Honestly, I’m getting put off by Plex. I’ve run into so many bugs since I started to use it and these aren’t niche edge cases, these are major issues like having to force restart or reinstall the Plex TV app every time it needs to sync, the Live TV search not working, streams with a black screen (until I restart the app), extremely laggy Live TV scrolling, having to wait 10 seconds (on a good phone!) for the guide to load, etc. I thought Plex was supposed to be the user-friendly and compatible option, but at least where Live TV is concerned, there’s a lot left to be desired.

6

For people who run into this issue in the future: The new channel limit is 455.