Audio playback issue on Plex iOS app

Plex Players
,
1

Hello,

I’d like to report an issue with audio track selection on downloaded (offline) media in the Plex app for iOS.

What works:
When I stream a movie or TV episode directly from my Plex Media Server, everything behaves correctly. Both audio tracks (English and French) are available, I can switch between them, and all subtitle tracks work as expected.

What doesn’t work:
When I download the same movie or episode to my device for offline playback (e.g. watching on the train), the audio track selection is not respected. Whichever track I choose — English or French — playback always uses the French audio track. Subtitles, however, continue to work normally: I can select and switch subtitle tracks without any problem.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Open a movie or episode with multiple embedded audio tracks (English + French).
  2. Download it to the device from the Plex iOS app.
  3. Play it in offline/downloaded mode.
  4. Open the playback settings and select the English audio track.
  5. Playback continues in French.
2

Yes, happens to me to annoyingly

3

Same ! Needs an Update.

4

This is happening to me as well! It makes the offline functionality completely unusable, almost all of my media has multiple audio tracks and they all choose non-english despite having english selected on client and server and downloading original quality.

Major bug

5

I can reproduce this too: downloaded playback remains in English even when Plex shows Lithuanian or Spanish as selected. Switching between the audio tracks changes the selection in the UI but never changes the audible language. Streaming the same episode from the server plays Lithuanian correctly.

Environment

  • iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 27 (the issue also occurred on iOS 26)
  • Plex client: 2026.17.0 (1958)
  • Download quality: Original
  • Observed with one TV series; source file examined: Berlin And The Lady With An Ermine, S01E03

Steps to reproduce

  1. Download the affected episode to the iPhone with download quality set to Original.
  2. Play the downloaded copy and open its audio track selector.
  3. Select Lithuanian: Plex shows Lithuanian as selected, but the dialogue is English.
  4. Switch to English and back to Lithuanian: the dialogue stays English.
  5. Select Spanish: the dialogue still stays English.
  6. Compare with streaming the same episode from the server, where Lithuanian audio works correctly.

Expected: Selecting a different available audio track should change the audible language to match the selection.

Source file details (ffprobe)

  • Container: Matroska / MKV
  • Video: H.264 High, 1920 × 1080, 24 fps
  • Duration: 00:51:16.928
  • All three audio streams have a 48 kHz sample rate and disposition.default=1.
ffprobe stream index Language tag Codec Channels Bitrate
1 lit (Lithuanian) AC-3 2.0 stereo 192 kb/s
2 eng (English) E-AC-3 5.1(side) 640 kb/s
3 spa (Spanish) E-AC-3 5.1(side) 640 kb/s

These details are from the original file on the server. I have not inspected the downloaded copy’s streams, so I cannot yet tell whether the issue is in download preparation or track selection during downloaded playback.

6

I am also having this issue - downloaded file allows selection of either/or audio track but only plays one of them despite selection in the app. (which is my case was the wrong language rendering my download on the plane useless and 3 hour flight with no media).

Unsure if unrelated, but it also messed up subtitles - English subtitles would not play either even though they were listed as selections in the playback menu.