Works on Mobile Data but Not on Wi-Fi: What Happens Between Your Router and the Server

This one drives people mad because it contradicts everything you usually check. The app is up to date, the subscription is paid, the playlist has not changed. You turn off Wi-Fi, switch to mobile data: everything loads. Back on Wi-Fi: nothing. The server exists, it answers, just not when the request leaves your home.

This guide first gets you to confirm it really is this case, then explains what is actually happening, because the cause is almost always the same, and it has a specific context in France.

Confirming in five minutes

Three tests, in order. Each rules out a family of causes.

1. The site's checker. Test your playlist with the checker. It queries the server from our machines, so from a network that is not yours. If it says "online", subscription active, channels counted, the server is fine.
2. Same device, two networks. On the phone, open a channel on Wi-Fi, then on mobile data, changing nothing else. If only Wi-Fi fails, it is neither the app nor the subscription.
3. Another device on the same Wi-Fi. If the TV, the Mac and the phone all fail on Wi-Fi, the cause is in the router or beyond, not in one device.

Three consistent results, and you know the problem is on the path between your router and the server. What remains is understanding which part.

What your router does when you open a channel

A playlist contains a server address, in the form of a name: something like provider-server.example. To reach that server, your router must first translate the name into a numeric address. That is DNS resolution, and by default your router asks your ISP's resolver.

Three answers are possible:

• The numeric address. Your router connects, the stream starts. The normal case.
• "This name does not exist." Your router connects to nothing. The app shows "unreachable" or "address not found", while the same name, resolved by another resolver, would give a valid address.
• A replacement address. Some ISPs redirect to an information page instead of the requested server. The app receives a response that is nothing like a video, and fails.

The last two cases produce exactly the symptom of this guide: the server is fine, mobile data finds it, your router does not. The mobile operator's resolver does not apply the same list as your home ISP's, and on another operator's network the list is different again.

Why France is a special case

Since the law of 25 October 2021, sports rights holders can obtain from a court the blocking of sites that broadcast their competitions without authorisation. The French particularity is dynamic blocking: once the decision is issued for a season, ARCOM, the regulator, can have new addresses added to the list week after week, without going back to the judge. In practice the list moves during matches, and ISPs apply it in their resolvers.

That explains the "it broke on a match night" scenario: your provider's address was added that evening. And the "it came back the next day" scenario: the provider changed domain, which they often do within hours. You then find yourself in the case of the provider that changed address.

Two developments make the subject less simple than a few years ago:

• 2024: public resolvers. A Paris court ordered Google and Cloudflare to apply some of these blocks in their public resolvers. Cisco chose to withdraw its OpenDNS service from France rather than comply. The old "change your DNS" reflex no longer gives the result it used to.
• 2025: VPNs. The same kind of injunction targeted several VPN providers, ordered to block a list of sites for their users in France.

This site does not explain how to get around a court decision, and the app does not do it either. When a domain is blocked by court order, the service behind it is considered illegal in France, and that is information about the service, not about your router.

The other, less frequent causes

Before concluding it is a block, three quick checks on the router itself. They produce the same symptom and take two minutes to fix.

• ISP parental controls or "protection". Most routers offer category filtering, sometimes on by default on new installations. A ticked "streaming" or "illegal content" category is enough.
• A home DNS filter. Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, or a "secure DNS" setting in the router. If you did not install it, someone in the household may have.
• A guest network. Some routers isolate the guest network and apply stricter rules to it. Check the TV is on the main network.

If none of those three boxes is ticked and the three tests at the start agree, you are in the blocking case.

What the app can do, and what it does not

When a stream does not answer, the IPTV Guard player probes the server and tells you what it found: saturated, refused, not found, unreachable. "Unreachable" from your network while the checker sees it online is this guide's diagnosis, and the app shows it to you rather than spinning.

It does nothing more, by design: a player plays what your network lets it reach. What happens between your router and the server is a matter for your ISP, the law, and the service you chose.