Chinese subtitles displaying as squares 口口口 and stuttering issue on AppleTV

Plex Players
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1

Server Version#: Version 1.41.8.9834
AppleTV Player Version#:8.45(9684)
Desktop Player Version#: web browser

I’m running the Plex server on the latest Debian system.

When I use it on Apple TV, Plex continuously has issues where Chinese subtitles
display as squares口口口, and when these squares appear, the playback speed becomes
very stuttered. When subtitles are turned off, there’s no stuttering issue.

When I use the Plex player on MacOS, there’s no such problem, whether subtitles are enabled or disabled.

I’ve tried downgrading the Plex server version which resolved the issue, because clearly this problem only appeared after the Plex server was upgraded to a certain version.

after upgrading to the latest version, the problem appeared again. I understand
this might be an issue with some connection between the Plex player on Apple TV
and the Plex server, but I don’t know how to solve it. Does anyone have any
clues?

2 Likes
2

Same problem here after latest plex upgrade.
Version 1.41.9.9961
AppleTV Version 8.45 (9684)

I have spent more time in the last 3 months just getting my content to play properly than actually watching content. All of the new apps and changes have been awful.

3

It seems they don’t care about the opinions of non-English speaking customers.

4

The issue still exists in version 1.42.1.10060-4e8b05daf

5

The issue still exists in Plex Media Server running on Debian, version v1.42.2.10156-f737b826c, with the latest TvOS 26 Apple TV Plex player.

/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex\ Media\ Server --version

v1.42.2.10156-f737b826c

6

I have this issue since upgrading to TVOS 26.

7

Same issue here. Is there any update?

8

For those who are suffering with this issue, I just found a workaround.
In the Plex setting, enable “use old video player”, and the chinese subtitles (both TC and SC) works fine.
Although this setting affects the style of some subtitles, at least it works.

9

Yes the “old video player” can play low bitrate video files

But it can not play higher bitrate video files and newer codes such as HEVC and it will cause plex server transcoding and you need a powerful CPU to convert.

1 Like
10

Have the same issue as well on Apple TV. But it works well on web player.

11

install font “苹方-简” from settings → general → fonts →my fonts, and it solved my problem playing contents with Chinese ass subtitle, it seems like that IOS26 and iPadOS 26 will NOT install “苹方-简” by default

12

We do NOT have issues with iOS 26 and iPad as you do.

we are talking about TVOS.

and the issue still exists in Plex Media Server running on Debian, version v1.42.2.10156-f737b826c, with the latest TvOS 26 Apple TV Plex player.

13

I encountered the same issue. After upgrading my Apple TV to TVOS 26, all Chinese subtitles turn into “口口口” and Video super lag. I hope the engineers can fix this problem soon. (Switching to the old player does solve it, but too many videos can’t play properly that way.) Has anyone found another workaround in the meantime?

14

it’s frustrating that not only Plex, but some other video player have the same issue as well. Therefore I think the root cause might be on tvOS.

I am now using Infuse with Plex and it work prefectly.

15

Thank you. I had already unsubscribed from Infuse, but it looks like I’ll have to subscribe again. Still hope this issue can be sloved soon.

16

I have same issue on my iPadOS 26. What’s strange is, this issue does not exist on iOS 26 on my iPhone.

17

At the end of the day, I used this powerful tool from GitHub - majd/ipatool: Command-line tool that allows searching and downloading app packages (known as ipa files) from the iOS App Store to download an old version - everything is back to normal. Will stick to this working version till this issue is fixed.