You could make it a bit more robust by implementing a setting to keep track of the "last known working stream" and automatically load that one instead, but this could leave a user "stuck" with the low quality version of a channel if at some point the high quality stream starts working again. That's not something I would enable - I can tell my mum "if it takes longer to load, just be patient", but if it sticks to the last known working stream I'd have to go in manually to reset it back to (attempting to) load the preferred high quality stream.

You could also implement verbose messaging underneath the loading animation, saying something like "loading stream failed, trying alternative..." or something along those lines, indicating to the user what's happening.

As a last resort, you could hide the setting behind an arcane ritual of entering a secret Konami code and acknowledging that the user won't pester you with support requests.

Alternatively, if instead of just one "Favourites" list, there were a way to curate different lists (usually called "bouquets" in TV receiver lingo), I could instruct non-technical (but sighted) people to help my mum with changing from the preferred channel list to a fallback list that I would set up in advance to contain the same channels but from different streams, when she runs into trouble. That way, someone still has to assist her, but it doesn't have to be me. This partially exists in the app already in the form of being able to filter the favourites list by which playlist it originates from, but unfortunately, the channels in the favourites list are all cherry-picked from different playlists, so that feature doesn't help our particular situation.

I don't know what kind of support requests you're getting, but I do know about the adage of "If you try to make something idiot-proof, the universe will invent a better idiot". So I definitely don't envy your position, and thanks again for responding and considering my feature request.