Notification Examples

Each alert type produces a distinct notification payload. The examples below show exactly what arrives in your notification provider (Pushover, Discord, Telegram, etc.) for a real event. Emoji and formatting are part of the payload itself.

Channel Watching

Sent when a device starts watching a live TV channel. The title is the channel name; the body includes channel number, program, device, and stream source.

📺 ABC
Channel: 7
Program: Good Morning America
Device: Living Room
IP: 192.168.1.101
Source: HDHR

With stream count logging enabled

Stream Counting is a Channel Watching sub-feature, not a separate alert type. When the Stream Count Logging toggle is on, the active stream count is appended to the internal log output for each Channel Watching event. It does not appear in the push notification above.

The log line looks like this:

[Channel Watching] ABC (ch 7) — Living Room | Active streams: 2

Note

The stream count is visible in the container logs only. Your notification provider receives the same payload shown above regardless of whether stream count logging is enabled.

VOD Watching

Sent when a device starts playing a recorded file or DVR library item. Includes playback progress, cast, rating, and genres when available.

🎬 Crank: High Voltage (2009)
Duration: 58m 46s / 1h 42m 11s
Device Name: Living Room
Device IP: 192.168.1.100

Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) seeks revenge after someone steals his nearly indestructible heart.

Rating: R · Genres: Action, Thriller
Cast: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Dwight Yoakam

Disk Space

Two severity levels are supported. Warning fires first; Critical fires when space drops further. Both use the same field layout with different titles and emoji.

Warning

⚠️ Low Disk Space Warning
Free Space: 200.59 GB / 1.82 TB (10.8%)
Used Space: 1.62 TB
DVR Path: /shares/DVR

Critical

🚨 Low Disk Space Critical
Free Space: 18.42 GB / 1.82 TB (1.0%)
Used Space: 1.80 TB
DVR Path: /shares/DVR

Recording Events

One notification is sent for each state transition in a recording’s lifecycle. The status line and timestamp fields change per state; the program description and channel info stay consistent.

Scheduled

📺 ACTION NETWORK
Channel: 137
Status: 📅 Scheduled
Program: Batman (1989)
-----------------------
Scheduled: Today at 8:54 AM EDT
Duration:  2 hours 16 minutes

Caped Crusader (Michael Keaton) saves Gotham City from the Joker (Jack Nicholson).

Recording

📺 MOVIE CHANNEL
Channel: 129
Status: 🔴 Recording (Manual)
Program: Crank: High Voltage (2009)
-----------------------
Recording: 8:49 AM EDT
Program:   8:48 AM EDT
Duration:  1 hour 42 minutes
Total Streams: 1

Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) seeks revenge after someone steals his nearly indestructible heart.

Completed

📺 MOVIE CHANNEL
Channel: 129
Status: ✅ Completed
Program: Pet Sematary (1989)
-----------------------
Duration: 1 hour 54 minutes
Total Streams: 1

A doctor (Dale Midkiff) and his family move to a town near an ancient Indian burial ground.

Stopped

📺 SCI-FI CHANNEL
Channel: 152
Status: ⏹️ Stopped
Program: Pandorum (2009)
-----------------------
Duration: 20 minutes
Total Streams: 1

Astronauts awake to a terrifying reality aboard a seemingly abandoned spaceship.

Testing your setup

You can trigger a test notification for any alert type from the web UI without waiting for a real event. Navigate to Settings > Diagnostics > Alert Tests and select the alert type you want to test. Test notifications are labeled [TEST] in the title so they’re easy to distinguish from real alerts.

For headless or automated testing, use the CLI:

docker exec -it channelwatch python -m channelwatch.main --test-alert ALERT_CHANNEL_WATCHING
docker exec -it channelwatch python -m channelwatch.main --test-alert ALERT_VOD_WATCHING
docker exec -it channelwatch python -m channelwatch.main --test-alert ALERT_DISK_SPACE
docker exec -it channelwatch python -m channelwatch.main --test-alert ALERT_RECORDING_EVENTS