Troubleshooting
Accented Characters Corrupted in an M3U List (ü, ş, ğ): Encoding Problem and Fix
If in an M3U list you see 'ü' instead of 'ü' or 'ÅŸ' instead of 'ş', the file's encoding and the encoding the player reads do not match. The most common case is a UTF-8 file read as Windows-1254 (Turkish ANSI) or Windows-1252, or the reverse. The fix is to save the file as UTF-8 and add a BOM if needed.
Quick fix steps
- Load the list into the M3U to M3U8 Converter; the encoding is detected automatically.
- Save it as UTF-8 (with or without BOM).
- Make the extension .m3u8.
- Give the new file to the player.
- If you are editing in Excel export the CSV as UTF-8 (BOM).
Tools to fix the problem
In-depth explanation
Why does it corrupt?
When a computer turns text into bytes it uses an encoding. UTF-8 is the universal encoding; it stores accented letters as two bytes. Windows-1254 and Windows-1252 are old single-byte encodings. A program that reads a UTF-8 file as Windows-1252 shows the bytes of 'ü' (C3 BC) as 'ü'. In the opposite case accented characters turn into a question mark or a broken symbol.
These tools detect UTF-8, UTF-16 and Windows-1254 automatically when you load a file.
What is a BOM?
A BOM (Byte Order Mark) is an invisible mark at the start of the file and identifies UTF-8. Some Windows tools (Excel, old versions of Notepad) do not recognise UTF-8 without a BOM; that is why a BOM is needed when opening a CSV in Excel. On the other hand some IPTV players take the BOM as part of the first line and fail to recognise the #EXTM3U header; so for M3U the BOM is off by default and added only if needed.
How to prevent it
When editing a list use an editor that supports UTF-8 (the M3U Editor on this site, VS Code, Notepad++). When exporting from Excel choose 'CSV UTF-8'. When merging lists from different sources (M3U Merger) convert all of them to UTF-8 first.
Frequently asked questions
Which encoding should I choose?
UTF-8; it is universal and supported by nearly all players.
Should I add a BOM?
Only if the player still shows accented characters wrongly or you use Excel.
Do the corrupted characters come back?
If the file was saved with the wrong encoding and information was lost (question marks) they do not come back; convert again from the original file.
What about emoji in channel names?
The M3U Cleaner can remove emoji and symbols.