Tvheadend

I've created an m3u with the following method:

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wget -O somelist.m3u 'http://example.com:9981/playlist/channels'
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Then I remove the '?ticket=.....' from the URL's and add the username info in the URL:
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http://example.com:9981/stream/channelid/936827062?ticket=ADA49BE7A675997954DFB39B53EB94BDBD22D4D1&profile=pass
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change to
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http://mylogin:[email protected]:9981/stream/channelid/936827062
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I feed the m3u file into a player (like vlc) and I noticed that when I select a channel, it doesnt' work from the first attempt, I need to reselect one more time.

The interesting part in the log:
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tvheadend¹³²²: webui: Stop streaming /stream/channelid/576096775, No service assigned to channel
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If I try again, it looks like the "service gets assigned to channel" and I can stream the channel to the player.
I am suspecting that tvheadend makes the assignement in the background on the fly.

question:
Am I calling the IPTV stream correctly? or am I supposed to call it with a different url i.e. using the mux URL?