This is something that should be extremely self-explanatory, but why Plex decides not to used Forced Subtitle tracks/files by default or (easily) selectable is beyond me. It ignores any and all default and forced subtitle files and keeps them off, making the user select them manually. Under languages in the server settings, the settings used to select subtitles are pretty lackluster.
In subtitle mode, the mode “Show with foreign audio” should be the setting to should use, as Plex describes that even when the audio track isn’t foreign it displays whatever subtitle file is forced. I even went as far as using MKVToolNIX to label the specific subtitle track as forced, however I discovered this has a secondary effect: when this option is selected and Plex detects a forced subtitle file, it will go out of its way to select a non-English audio track (if available) even when the English audio file is the default one (the logic behind it is because the setting says foreign audio). Therefore for any piece of media with Dual Audio it will select the foreign audio on this setting against the user’s will, so I basically cant use this.
This is also a complete pain when dealing with pieces of media with multiple subtitle files all labelled under a single language (or even possibly labelled as an undefined language), therefore Plex will more times than not pick the wrong subtitle file to show.
Not to mention if you only need subtitles for a single show or type of media (for example foreign movies), you’ll have to change your settings everytime you want to switch back to regular tv shows or movies.
All of this could be easily avoided if
A. Have an optional checkbox to where if there is a default subtitle file present, it will automatically play the subtitle with the media.
B. Another checkbox same as A but with the “Forced” subtitle flag
C. Have subtitle settings be applicable to select media at the user’s discretion, for media with specific settings needed. Best example I can give is Game of Thrones, where the audio is English but their fantasy language they use throughout, Dothraki, more times than not requires an external subtitle file, which would obviously when being created go under the Undefined tag.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve been reading that article for 3 years - and haven’t understood it enough to get ‘forced’ subs to work - not even once - I’d agree with you.
But don’t trouble yourself. I gave up a LONG time ago and just go to https://subscene.com/ , download the appropriate sub-title described as 'For Non-English Parts Only, name it without the ‘.forced.’ tag and enable it before or during playback (depending on which of these wonderful Plex Apps I’m using and on which device) because apparently the only people that can get it to work right are Developers, Employees and perhaps a Ninja or two.
is this a prank? Did you even read my post?
Maybe that article isn’t clear enough, but it is possible to get PMS to auto select your subtitles. First, in Plex Web, Settings \ Server \ Languages \ Automatically Select Audio and Subtitle Track (set to enable). Then if you want PMS to select the default subtitle track, set the Subtitle Mode to Always Enabled. This will select the first subtitle track that matches you desired language OR the subtitle track labeled default. To auto-select the forced track, set that option to Shown with Foreign Audio. I know this works for external subtitles named properly. I’m not sure about embedded tracks with the default flag, but I have tested the forced flag and it does work.
Your external subtitles need to be named Movie (year).language code.forced.ext or Movie (year).language code.default.ext.
If this is not working, then it may be a bug and we would need to see the XML for your video and the PMS logs when you start playing back that file.
it will go out of its way to select a non-English audio track (if available) even when the English audio file is the default one (the logic behind it is because the setting says foreign audio)
If you are seeing this, it is definitely not expected. PMS should not be auto-selecting a foreign language that is not the preferred one. The only time would be if there are no language codes, then PMS will pick the first audio track. If that track happens to be another language then it would still get chosen, not because of the language, but because it is the first track. If you have a movie that you can reproduce this behavior, I would love to see the PMS logs when playing back this item.
So I’ve been trying to achieve this using EMBEDDED subtitle tracks, and all of my statements in the original post still hold true. So, I ended up ripping the subtitle file out of the episodes one by one with MKVToolNIX, renamed them the way its stated with the .forced extension and there you go, works the way its supposed to. Why this doesn’t work with embedded files is beyond me, and I still think that a checkbox would be much easier for embedded subtitles because, when tagged as forced and embedded, it still does choose the foreign language against its perferred audio setting (the languages are coded correctly by the way, plex recognizes the languages of all the audio tracks in the file)
Can you provide me (via PM) the file to test or at least a sample of that file? If you provide sample, please check that it exhibits the problem first.
