Bug report

Describe the bug

Dear Kodi developers / maintainers,

Since November 2025 (could not say when precisely), it is not possible anymore to play .strm file with KODI Video library or IPT stream with PVR / IP TV Simple.

The error is 555 (look for the following text) in the kodi-KO.log:

Failed with code 555

As recommended by some users on https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=383227, I asked the stream provider if anything had changed on their end, but they said no.

The weird thing is that everything is OK with other tools like cURL, wget, VLC or Emby (tested on the same machine, with same stream). They return a response similar to

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2026 16:39:52 GMT
Content-Type: video/mp2t
Connection: close
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *

But with KODI PVR / IPTV Simple, the response is

2026-01-02 17:49:53.924 T:45856   debug <general>: Curl::Debug - HEADER_IN: HTTP/1.1 555 
2026-01-02 17:49:53.924 T:45856   debug <general>: Curl::Debug - HEADER_IN: Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2026 16:49:53 GMT
2026-01-02 17:49:53.924 T:45856   debug <general>: Curl::Debug - HEADER_IN: Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
2026-01-02 17:49:53.924 T:45856   debug <general>: Curl::Debug - HEADER_IN: Connection: close
2026-01-02 17:49:53.924 T:45856   debug <general>: Curl::Debug - HEADER_IN: Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
2026-01-02 17:49:53.933 T:45856   debug <general>: Curl::Debug - TEXT: shutting down connection #0
2026-01-02 17:49:53.933 T:45856   error <general>: CCurlFile::Open - <http://***> Failed with code 555:

As a side note, I have to say that it seems specific to a provider, have tried with other providers (for instance with some of those provided by https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv and they worked fine).

According to the feedback gathered on bug report published on kodi-pvr/pvr.iptvsimple#1003 , it could be caused by Kodi doing 2 requests to the stream instead of a single one (the first request gets the stream, but the second request invalidates the steam since the token is unique / not valid anymore). See kodi-pvr/pvr.iptvsimple#1003 (comment) :

Kodi does an additional check here https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master/xbmc/cores/VideoPlayer/DVDInputStreams/DVDFactoryInputStream.cpp#L142 and it then continues to close and open the file
Whether Kodi should close and reopen a stream with a known video MIME type is questionable. In this case the URL being returned is a one time use and tokenized so it can't be reused.

Expected Behavior

• IPTV stream in an .strm file play in Kodi Video library
• IPTV steam in an .m3u playlist play in PVR IPTV Simple

Actual Behavior

• No IPTV stream is played at all

Possible Fix

Fix 1

According to kodi-pvr/pvr.iptvsimple#1003 (comment)

the problem is Kodi does an additional check here https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master/xbmc/cores/VideoPlayer/DVDInputStreams/DVDFactoryInputStream.cpp#L142 and it then continues to close and open the file
Whether Kodi should close and reopen a stream with a known video MIME type is questionable. In this case the URL being returned is a one time use and tokenized so it can't be reused.

By adding

#KODIPROP:mimetype=video/mp2t

next to

#EXTINF...

of each IPTV stream, the IPTV stream works as expected with PVR IPTV Simple.

Fix 2

Another solution suggested on https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=383227&pid=3255094#pid3255094 is to get a playlist with output streams of type m3u8 . And indeed, by changing the stream URLS in the .m3u playlist from

http://domain.tld/xxx/yyyy/1234

to

http://domain.tld/live/xxx/yyyy/1234.m3u8

the IPTV streams then work.

Fix 3

As suggested on kodi-pvr/pvr.iptvsimple#1003 (comment) , for IPTV Simple at least, indicate the mime type video/mp2t in the Advanced Settings / Mime Type of the Simple IPTV configuration.

To Reproduce

1. Add an IPTV stream to a .strm file, add it to a video library, and play it with Kodi Video
2. Load an .m3u of IPTV streams to PVR IPTV Simple and play the streams with Kodi TV

Debuglog

Log files:

• kodi-KO.log
• cURL-OK.log
• wget-OK.log
• vlc-OK.log

Screenshots

N/A

Additional context or screenshots (if appropriate)

N/A

Your Environment

Computer:

Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 25.10
Release:	25.10
Codename:	questing

Kodi:

ii  kodi                                          2:21.2+dfsg-4build2                        amd64        Open Source Home Theatre (executable binaries)
ii  kodi-bin                                      2:21.2+dfsg-4build2                        amd64        Open Source Home Theatre (architecture-dependent files)
ii  kodi-data                                     2:21.2+dfsg-4build2                        all          Open Source Home Theatre (arch-independent data package)
ii  kodi-inputstream-adaptive                     21.5.9+ds-1                                amd64        Adaptive inputstream addon for Kodi
ii  kodi-inputstream-ffmpegdirect                 21.3.7+ds-2                                amd64        FFmpegDirect inputstream addon for Kodi
ii  kodi-inputstream-rtmp                         21.1.2+ds-1                                amd64        Kodi input stream addon for RTMP
ii  kodi-pvr-iptvsimple                           21.10.2+ds-1                               amd64        IPTV Simple Client Kodi PVR Addon
ii  kodi-repository-kodi                          2:21.2+dfsg-4build2                        all          Open Source Home Theatre (official addons repository feed)
ii  kodi-visualization-spectrum:amd64             21.0.2+ds-1                                amd64        Spectrum visualizer addon for Kodi