FAQ

How is streamtop different from ffprobe or VLC? ffprobe inspects a single file or URL snapshot, and VLC plays the stream. streamtop polls live playlists, tracks segment health over time, shows SCTE-35 markers and linter score trends, and exports Prometheus metrics and CI summary JSON. See Comparison.

Does it work headless in CI? Yes. Use --summary --summary-format json --timeout N for PASS/FAIL output, --summary-format sarif or --export sarif:FILE for Code Scanning, and --budget-max-* for threshold gates. See Headless and CI.

Which protocols are supported? HLS (including LL-HLS parts), MPEG-DASH, IPTV channel lists (M3U, JSON, YAML), and WHEP HTTP endpoints. Wire probes cover fMP4, MPEG-TS, ADTS, and H.264/H.265 elementary streams without a decoder.

Can it check which channels in my IPTV playlist work? Yes. streamtop check playlist.m3u prints LIVE, STALL, or ERROR for every entry, with JSON/CSV output, --alive-out for a cleaned playlist, and --fail-on-dead for scripts. See IPTV playlist checking.

Is it safe to expose Prometheus metrics? The default bind is loopback. A non-loopback bind requires --metrics-token or STREAMTOP_METRICS_TOKEN, and requests must send Authorization: Bearer.

Are tokens in my URLs written to disk? Exports and diagnostics redact URLs, query tokens, and secrets.

Does it need FFmpeg? No. Only Quick Play (p) uses mpv or ffplay if they are installed.

Where do I report a bug? GitHub issues. Questions and ideas can go to Discussions.