Setup guides
Adding a Stalker Portal playlist
Stalker portals authenticate the device rather than the person, so the MAC address matters more than anything else on this screen. Get it exactly right and the rest usually follows.
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Stalker Portal comes from the set‑top‑box world, and its authentication model reflects that: the subscription is attached to a device's MAC address, not to a username you could type on any device. InoxTV can present itself as that device, which is what makes portal accounts work here at all.
It is the most temperamental of the three connection types. If your provider also offers Xtream Codes or an M3U link, use one of those instead, not because portals are worse to watch, but because there is less to go wrong.
Adding the portal
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Open the add-playlist screen
Settings › Playlists › Add playlist, then Stalker Portal on the Playlist Type screen.
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Enter the portal URL
Portal url* takes the address your provider gave you, with
http://orhttps://included. Portals are usually served from a path rather than a bare host, so if you were given something ending in/c/or/stalker_portal/c/, keep it. An address the app cannot parse produces Enter a valid portal URL., and an empty field produces Portal URL is required. -
Set the MAC address
Mac address* arrives pre‑filled with
00:1a:79:00:00:00. That is the standard prefix for these boxes, not an account. Replace the whole value with the address your provider registered for you.Use colons, not hyphens, and copy it character for character. Malformed input produces Enter a valid MAC address.; a well‑formed address that is not registered will pass validation and then fail to authenticate, which is a much less obvious failure.
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Fill the optional fields, if you were given them
Serial(optional), Device id (optional), Device id2 (optional), Signature(optional) and Model (optional) exist because portals differ in how much they check. Leave them empty unless your provider supplied values. Inventing one is worse than leaving it blank, because a portal that checks the serial will reject a wrong value while ignoring an absent one.
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Name the playlist and save
Playlist name, then save. Watch the live TV, movies and shows counts climb. When they stop, the portal has handed over its lists.
One session per MAC
Most portal subscriptions permit a single active session. Opening the same portal on a phone while the television is watching will usually knock one of them off, and the failure often appears mid‑programme rather than at login. If you need two devices at once, that is a second MAC from your provider, not a setting in the app.
When the portal refuses
Portal failures are less descriptive than Xtream ones, because the portal generally answers with nothing rather than with a reason. Work through these in order.
| Check | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| MAC matches exactly | One wrong character validates fine and then authenticates as an unknown device. Re-read it against your provider's message. |
| Another session is open | It works after you fully close the app on your other device. |
| Portal path is complete | Some portals need the trailing /c/. Try with and without it. |
| Subscription is active | Portals often stop answering entirely on expiry rather than saying so. |
| Optional fields are required after all | Ask your provider whether a serial or device ID is expected for your account. |
| Portal is simply down | Nothing loads for anyone. Try again later before changing settings you had right. |
If nothing here helps, a playlist that will not load covers the causes that apply to all three connection types, including network-level blocking and DNS.
Programme guide data on a portal
Guide support varies more on Stalker than anywhere else. Some portals serve a full week; some serve the current programme only; some serve nothing at all. If the TV guide is empty after a successful connection, that is the portal, not a broken app.
The fix is to supply guide data yourself. Open the playlist under Settings › Playlists, put an XMLTV address into its EPG field, and set EPG source accordingly: setting up the TV guide covers matching that data to your channels, which is the part that usually needs attention.
Living with a portal connection
Two habits make a portal noticeably more reliable. Leave Update playlist on app start off unless you have a reason to turn it on, because a portal that is slow to answer will make every app launch slow. And when a channel stops working, disable and re‑enable the playlist with Enable playlist before assuming something is broken, that re‑establishes the session, which is what a stuck portal usually needs.
Why a portal wants a MAC address at all
A portal was designed to serve set‑top boxes, and the MAC address is how it recognises one. Your subscription is attached to that address rather than to a username, which explains most of what feels odd about this connection type: there is no password to change, no account page inside the app, and no way to be signed in on two devices unless your provider registered two addresses.
It also explains why the MAC has to be exact. The portal is not checking a credential you own, it is checking an identity it issued, and a single wrong character makes you a different box.
Ask whether you need to be on a portal
Plenty of services run a portal and an Xtream panel from the same subscription and only mention the one you asked about. It is worth a message to your provider: if they can issue you a server address, username and password, connecting that way gives you a real films and series library, visible account details and no single‑session ambiguity. If a portal is genuinely all they offer, everything above still applies and it works perfectly well.