External SDH Subtitles

[bigbrother_55]

Server Version#: Version 1.41.9.9917 (issue started with previous BETA 1.41.9.9912)

Has anyone besides myself noticed, since the release of the last BETA PMS:

New BETA PMS Version Available - 1.41.9.9912-371133ff9

External “SDH” .srt subtitles, ending with for example: “movie_title.en.sdh” no longer properly show/display in either PMS and/or Android based clients (that I’m aware of)?

Note(s):

Absolutely NO functionality has been lost, simply the proper display of external “SDH” subs.

Additionally, using 2-letter (.en) or 3-letter(.eng) language codes makes no difference
Any feedback is welcome!

Update(s):

Upon further investigation, this seem to ONLY impact “Movie” libraries and NOT “TV Shows” - EDIT: Manually refreshing metadata has impact on all libraries.

~Thanks~

[FordGuy61]

I’m seeing same with Plex Web (app.plex.tv) and Android Mobile 2025.19 (didn’t check any others).

PMS 1.41.8.9834 / Plex Web

PMS 1.41.9.9917 / Plex Web

[OttoKerner]

I’ve filed an internal issue.

[OttoKerner]

@bigbrother_55

Upon further investigation, this seem to ONLY impact “Movie” libraries and NOT “TV Shows”

It appears to impact both library types.
But only external subtitles. Internal ones are still properly shown as SDH.

[bigbrother_55]

You are correct, upon manually refreshing metadata on any media, this has impact!

Thank you for keeping me (us) honest.

[OttoKerner]

Plex Media Server

Plex Media Server 1.41.9.9961 is now available to Plex Pass users in the Beta update channel. NEW: (Web) Updated to 4.147.1 FIXES: (Music) Music files with embedded Release Type tags are failing to extract local metadata (PM-3751) (Networking) Replaced enable ipv6 preference with client network. (PM-2912) (Photos) GPS coordinate data was not getting saved to the database (PM-3584) (Photos) GPS coordinates are not being serialized correctly (PM-3482) (Shield) Watching live TV caused server …

[bigbrother_55]

Thank you kindly! I will try this out after work this evening.

Edit:

So, I’ve installed the latest Beta PMS release…

• Scanned all libraries
• Analyzed a few for testing
• Began refreshing metadata on some libraries

Can someone please advise…Is there something I’m missing to make the external SDH subtitles show/display again?

~Much appreciated~

[jfreiman]

I’m on a new (old) Transcoder Preview build of the server and have a question bsed on tthis issue and subsequent fix.

I’m generating a lot of my subtitles for older content using (Whisper) AI and I’m naming the resulting files in the following format:

video_name.eng.AI.srt

Is there anyway that the Plex UI could display the subtiles with the AI in Plex’s subtitle description like they are for SDH?

Does Plex already support this, and I’m just not using an approved naming convention?

[FordGuy61]

@jfreiman

Is there anyway that the Plex UI could display the subtiles with the AI in Plex’s subtitle description like they are for SDH?

Not supported for external subtitles.

You can name embedded subtitles. The name will be displayed by most Plex clients.

Use MKVToolNix or similar tools.

[jfreiman]

yeah, I embed them (“Whisper AI generated”) in movies with the a notification that that are AI generated, but that’s too much to do for a single series, let alone several dozen series.

My software which I use to batch merge videos doesn’t support adding a “track name.”

[FordGuy61]

jmkvpropedit

Windows tool. Hasn’t been updated since 2021 but still works (at least on Windows 10).

Let’s you bulk edit video/audio/subtitle track names in MKV files.

So, if the AI generated subtitles were in the same position in each file (ex: first subtitle track, third subtitle track, etc.) you can name the tracks of an entire season (or more) in a minute or two.

Not the most elegant solution, but easier than editing one file at a time.

[bigbrother_55]

Another less elegant but effective solution you might consider is…

If you download and install MKVToolNix, you can create batch scripts with your desired “settings/naming” schemes to bulk edit your media files/folders. This is simply the cli version of using/running “jmkvpropedit”

For example:

for %%A in ("*.mkv") do "C:\Program Files\MKVToolNix\mkvpropedit.exe" "%%A" ^
--edit track:v1 --set flag-enabled=1 --set flag-default=1 --set name="" --set language="eng" ^
--edit track:a1 --set flag-enabled=1 --set flag-default=1 --set name="" --set language="eng" ^
--edit track:s1 --set flag-enabled=1 --set flag-default=1 --set name="English SDH (SRT)" --set language="eng" --set flag-hearing-impaired=1 ^

[jfreiman]

@FordGuy61

Not the most elegant solution, but easier than editing one file at a time.

I’m used to things not being elegant, thanks I’m very happy to give it a try.

I could probably save a TB of drive space if I deleted all the external subs! (My 92yo Mom uses sdh, everyone else uses the regular so I need both).

[OttoKerner]

@jfreiman

I could probably save a TB of drive space if I deleted all the external subs!

These are probably the smallest files within your media folders.

[jfreiman]

@bigbrother_55

If you download and install MKVToolNix, you can create batch scripts with your desired “settings/naming” schemes to bulk edit your media files/folders. This is simply the cli version of using/running “jmkvpropedit

I guess I know what I’ll be playing with this weekend …

Thank you everyone for you help!

[jfreiman]

@ChristianKent

Here’s a batch GUI using MKVToolNix

This app is woking great for series where I have already embedded the srts into the mkv files, but I have many hundreds of series where my AI generated subs are still external to the mkv files.

Maybe I’m missing something, but can your app combine the external srt into the existing mkv?

[OttoKerner]

Have you tested with a current Plex server version?
I was under the impression that the original issue from above was already fixed. So an external subtitle which is named like
movies_file_name.eng.sdh.srt should show up again as “English (SDH)” within Plex.