Hetspan › Guide

MAG box setup: entering your portal and why the provider needs your MAC address

Your MAG box says the portal is not available, or it boots into some built-in portal that has nothing to do with your subscription. You have been hunting for the username and password field, and there isn't one. Here is why, and what to do in what order.

Infomir's MAG boxes run a portal client — the technology is usually called stalker. Instead of signing in with a username and password, the box identifies itself to the server using its MAC address, the hardware identifier burned into it at the factory. The server looks at that MAC, checks whether it is on the list of allowed devices, and either loads your channels or refuses.

Two consequences follow. First, a portal URL on its own is never enough — the URL tells your box where to knock, but only the whitelist decides whether the door opens. Second, the exact same portal URL that works on a friend's box will show an error on yours, because his MAC is on the list and yours is not.

So: no amount of menu-fiddling will help until your MAC is registered on the provider's side. Do that step first.

Find your MAC address

It is printed on the sticker on the underside of the box, in the form 00:1A:79:11:22:33. The 00:1A:79 prefix belongs to Infomir, so most MAG addresses start that way. It is also shown on screen in the box's system information — the exact menu label varies between MAG models and firmware versions, so look for "System Information" or "Device Info" rather than following a path someone invented.

Three warnings that cost people an entire afternoon:

It is a colon-separated hexadecimal string. 0 and O are different characters, and so are 1 and I. Read it off the sticker in good light.
Send it exactly as printed. One wrong character and the server sees a device it has never heard of, with the same error screen as if you had sent nothing.
The MAC is the only value your provider needs for this, and it is safe to send — it identifies the box, not your account. Do not send your subscription password with it. Nobody needs your password to whitelist a box, and it should not be sitting in a chat thread afterwards.

Then send it to your provider and wait for confirmation before troubleshooting anything else. This is worth knowing in advance: MAG portal access is something providers offer on some plans rather than universally, since it needs manual work at their end for every box. With Aroma IPTV or Strong 8K, for example, subscriptions are sold by duration, delivery is Xtream Codes / M3U credentials and support runs over WhatsApp — so getting a box added means sending the MAC to WhatsApp support and waiting for them to confirm it is done. Until that confirmation arrives, every error screen below is expected behaviour.

Get the network working first

Go to Settings > System Settings > Network. Wireless only appears there if your model has built-in Wi-Fi or you have a supported Infomir USB adapter plugged in — many MAG boxes are Ethernet-only, so a missing wireless option is usually the hardware rather than a menu you have failed to find. Whichever connection you use, confirm the box has actually been given an IP address and a DNS server, not just that it says "connected". If those fields are blank, stop here. A portal error means nothing at all while the box has no working connection, and you will chase it for hours.

Prefer wired if you possibly can. MAG boxes are noticeably less tolerant of weak Wi-Fi than a Fire Stick is, and a marginal wireless signal shows up as portal timeouts rather than as buffering.

Check the clock

If your portal address starts https://, a badly wrong clock stops the portal loading at all. The box compares the server's certificate against its own idea of today's date, decides the certificate is not valid yet or has already expired, and drops the connection before any portal logic runs. A wrong clock also leaves the programme guide showing the wrong times, or nothing at all. In System Settings, set the correct time zone and let the box synchronise its time over the network. It takes thirty seconds to check and it accounts for a whole category of "it just won't connect, everything else is right" cases.

Enter the portal

From the main menu, press the SETUP button on the remote (labelled SET or SETUP depending on which remote came with your box).
Go to System Settings > Servers > Portals.
Portal 1 Name can be anything you like — it is only a label on your own screen and it is not sent anywhere.
Portal 1 URL takes the full address your provider sent, exactly as given, including the ending. These normally finish with /c/ or /stalker_portal/c/, and dropping that last part is a common mistake because it looks like decoration.
Save, then restart the portal from the system menu — or simply pull the power for ten seconds and plug it back in.

Leave Portal 2 empty. It exists so you can keep a second provider configured; a stray or half-typed address in it can send the box somewhere you did not intend on boot.

What the error screens mean

"Portal not available", or a blank screen after the boot logo. The usual causes, worth checking in this order: your MAC has not been whitelisted yet; the URL has a typo or is missing its trailing /c/; or DNS is not resolving on the box.
The box drops back into its own built-in portal. Portal 1 is empty, was not saved, or the address is unreachable. Go back into the Portals menu and confirm what is actually stored there.
An endless loading bar. Check the network and DNS first. The box is trying to reach an address it cannot get an answer from.
Portal loads but no channels play. The account is authenticating, so the MAC is fine — this is now a subscription or connection question for your provider.

Test in one order and change one thing at a time: MAC confirmed by the provider, then network, then clock, then URL. Changing three settings at once and rebooting teaches you nothing.

Firmware

Check the image version in the box's system information, and if you want to update, use the box's own software update option in System Settings. Do not flash a firmware image you found on a forum. A bad flash can leave the box unable to boot, and there is no undo available from the sofa — recovery needs a specific image, a USB stick and a procedure for your exact model.

The same portal on an Android box

StbEmu and similar Android apps are MAG clients. They take the same portal URL and present a virtual MAC address that the app generates, and your provider must whitelist that virtual MAC exactly as they would a physical box — so it is a second message to the same WhatsApp support, with the MAC the app is showing you.

Because that MAC is your identity to the server, changing it in the app's settings makes you a stranger again. Once the portal works, leave it alone. Note also that a factory reset, an app reinstall or clearing the app's data can generate a new one, which means asking for it to be whitelisted all over again — write yours down somewhere.

Getting such an app onto an Android TV box in the first place is covered in the sideloading guide.

When a MAG stops being the right answer

MAG hardware is perfectly good, but on the Linux models the portal client is fixed. On a 250, 254, 322, 324, 351, 420, 424, 522 or 524 you cannot install a different player, so if your provider does not offer portal access on your plan, or your MAC cannot be added, there is no software route around that from the box itself. Infomir's Android models are a different proposition — the MAG425A is an Android TV box with Google Play and runs ordinary players like any other Android box — so check which model you are actually holding before concluding that you are stuck.

If you are stuck, a small Android TV box running an Xtream-capable player is the more flexible option, and it uses the same subscription — the same account that would have fed the portal will feed an Xtream login or an M3U playlist instead. If you are not sure which of those you were sent, start with the credentials guide.