I have mkv rips that have a srt file that is labeled with “FORCED” in the file name. Why doesn’t Plex choose this Forced subtitle track since logically it will be the BEST choice for “Foreign audio only” that Plex tries to find?
Going by the Plex Support article:
Shown with Foreign Audio
If an audio track matching your preferred audio language is not found, Plex will try to display the most appropriate subtitle track using the following logic:
If a subtitle that matches your preferred subtitle language is found, the first one will be displayed, else
Plex is skipping the FORCED srt file because it already found an English srt subtitle file before the FORCED one…
Please copy the actual file names of both mkv and set in here.
My mistake, its an embedded PGS file. ENGLISH-FORCED-PGS is the forced subtitle track in the mkv.
Here are all the subtitle tracks:
Is there still something I can do? I am using an Apple TV 4K as the Plex App.
Having ‘Forced’ in the track title doesn’t make it a real forced track.
MKV has a special flag to indicate a track is ‘forced’.
Unfortunately your little screen shot snippet above doesn’t show these. But I think the flag is just missing.
Get yourself Mkvtoolnix and repair your file.
Ah you were right. That tool shows it wasnt flagged as Forced.
But there is still the problem of Plex still playing all subtitles and not just foreign for other movies that I dont feel like flagging a forced track for. Does this mean I will either have to remux all my movies or keep subtitles off? Would Sub-Zero maybe work for my situation?
A MKV doesn’t need to be remuxed to set the flag. Just use ‘Header Editor’ in Mkvtoolnix next time.
If your forced subs are not properly marked as such, Plex doesn’t know which track to show.
Please post the complete Mediainfo of the file where it doesn’t work.
So if I have a movie file with no forced track flagged, should Plex still be showing subtitles throughout the movie by selecting the first English subtitle track? I dont want this behavior if I have it set to Foreign audio only.
@kianrafiee said:
So if I have a movie file with no forced track flagged, should Plex still be showing subtitles throughout the movie by selecting the first English subtitle track? I dont want this behavior if I have it set to Foreign audio only.
Plex will do that if the audio track has its language marked wrong or not marked at all.
It then considers the audio track as in a foreign language, for which you need a translation.
I see. Thanks for the help. Seems like I might have to try Sub-Zero and see if the subtitles it picks aren’t going to be out of sync since my movie files might not be 1:1 with official blu-ray releases :\
I don’t think SubZero will help in your case. I also don’t know a reliable source for ‘forced’ subtitles online. All you usually get are ‘complete’ or ‘SDH’ subtitles.
@OttoKerner I set the video forced subtitle PGS track to Forced and Default and set other subtitle tracks to Off for both Forced and Default but it still defaults to another subtitle track in plex web player. I refreshed the metadata everytime.
If you touched the subtitle selector once on any particular item, Plex will remember this selection. The automatic selection is then overridden by your manual selection and stays that way.
The automatic selection will only be effective on items which are either new or where the subitle selector was never touched by you.
If you want Plex to treat a particular item as “new”, perform the full Plex Dance with it.
@OttoKerner I did not touch the subtitle selector for it.
Edit: you were right. I must have selected it at some point before. I did the dance and its working now.
@OttoKerner Ok another snag. When I change the audio track from TrueHD to AC3, it reverts subtitle track back to the wrong one.
I also changed the movie files default audio track from TrueHD to AC3 and did the plex dance, but it still shows TrueHD in PMS.
@OttoKerner said:
I don’t think SubZero will help in your case. I also don’t know a reliable source for ‘forced’ subtitles online. All you usually get are ‘complete’ or ‘SDH’ subtitles.
Cool, that was a question I had. Thank you.
@kianrafiee said:
I also changed the movie files default audio track from TrueHD to AC3 and did the plex dance, but it still shows TrueHD in PMS.
Plex doesn’t heed the ‘default’ flag.
It will always select the first audio track which has the right language.
