The server preference is irrelevant unless
In all other cases, the language prefs of the respective user account are used.
Could you post the contents of the Plex XML info of this movie?
Thanks for looking at this!
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="35653" key="/library/parts/35653/1581765260/file.mkv" duration="11706580" file="/media/Filme/Schindler's List (1993) BD wilmaw -1080p.mkv" size="10340882765" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="4" indexes="sd" requiredBandwidths="31809,25731,14985,11490,10923,10474,8513,7469" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="102225" streamType="1" default="1" codec="hevc" index="0" bitrate="6171" bitDepth="8" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" colorPrimaries="bt709" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt709" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="23.976" height="1040" level="120" profile="main" refFrames="1" requiredBandwidths="30880,24802,14054,10536,9972,9523,7549,6510" width="1920" displayTitle="1080p (HEVC Main)" />
<Stream id="102226" streamType="2" default="1" codec="ac3" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="448" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" requiredBandwidths="448,448,448,448,448,448,448,448" samplingRate="48000" title="Stereo" displayTitle="English (AC3 Stereo)" />
<Stream id="102227" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="ac3" index="2" channels="2" bitrate="448" language="Deutsch" languageCode="ger" audioChannelLayout="stereo" requiredBandwidths="448,448,448,448,448,448,448,448" samplingRate="48000" title="Stereo" displayTitle="Deutsch (AC3 Stereo)" />
<Stream id="102228" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="3" language="English" languageCode="eng" headerCompression="1" requiredBandwidths="68,68,68,68,68,68,68,68" title="English" displayTitle="English (PGS)" />
<Stream id="102229" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="4" language="Deutsch" languageCode="ger" headerCompression="1" requiredBandwidths="75,75,75,75,75,75,75,75" title="Deutsch" displayTitle="Deutsch (PGS)" />
<Stream id="102230" streamType="3" selected="1" default="1" forced="1" codec="pgs" index="5" language="English" languageCode="eng" headerCompression="1" requiredBandwidths="64,64,64,64,64,64,64,64" title="English Forced" displayTitle="English Erzwungen (PGS)" />
<Stream id="102231" streamType="3" forced="1" codec="pgs" index="6" language="Deutsch" languageCode="ger" headerCompression="1" requiredBandwidths="75,75,75,75,75,75,75,75" title="Deutsch Erzwungen" displayTitle="Deutsch Erzwungen (PGS)" />
</Part>
Hm, this looks all normal.
I just noticed that you are on a server version which has a bug related to the automatic track selection. Update your server version to at least 1.18.5
Then:
Make sure none of your clients is still on the movieâs preplay page. Set them all back to the home page.
Let it sit for a few minutes afterwards, then enter this movieâs preplay page again.
Good to know, thanks! Unfortunately I cannot update because hardware transcoding is still broken with any newer version. Even bypassing the intel iHD driver bug by deleting the driver file does not work anymore.
My thread about this is unanswered for over two weeksâŠ
(Transcoder not working again)
I have setup an up-to-date test server using the latest beta. The good news: Hardware transcoding is working again.
The bad news: sub selection still does not work properly.
I have not done the plex dance but just switched to a movie not touched before. Using the settings above (Selected German, German, on foreign language and prefer forced subtitles.) is now working as expected. So that seems to be a proper way of getting at least forced subs for german audio and when I select an english audio stream it selects the german full sub. Did some further testing, what I can see so far, most things are working, except for one thingâŠ
Changeing Forced Subtitle Search to âOnly show forced Subtitlesâ
Behavior: Nothing changes. Subtitles are still selected the same way like before. âonly show forcedâ not working.
And here we are again. The initial problem.
That applies only to subtitles you add by selecting Search...
I see. So the question is, why is this behaviour available for selecting subs to download but not for selecting present subs? I mean that is just the main idea of forced flag⊠I would really appreciate such a Feature and i am very sure it is not just me.
Recently added the movie âParasiteâ to my library. The audio is correctly identified as âKoreanâ There are three subtitle tracks, the first one is âEnglishâ with the forced and default flags, the second subtitle is âChineseâ and the third is another English subtitle. The second and third subtitles do not have the forced flag.
User profile is set up properly (I believe) with preferred audio language as English, preferred subtitle language as English, Auto Select Subtitle mode as âShown with Foreign Audioâ
The hearing Impaired (SDH) search is set to âPrefer Hearing Impairedâ and the Forced Subtitles Search is set to âPrefer non-forced Subtitlesâ If what @OttoKerner says is true those two settings shouldnât matter when their are subs embedded in the MKV file. as they only apply to downloaded subs.
When I played the file, expecting the first forced English subtitle track to be displayed the third subtitle was used instead. This was on an Android TV device. The pre-play screen, before I started the movie, even had the proper (forced) subtitle pre-selected.
Attaching the XML for the movie. The forced subtitle is now shown as selected because I changed that manually to display the proper subtitle.
Parasite.xml.txt (42.5 KB)
EDIT: Iâve manually selected each subtitle track at least once since the initial glitch, so my above statement is not correct about which track is shown as selected in the XML. Howeve, that doesnât change the fact that it auto-selected the non-forced track on first play
Donât know if itâs a server problem, or an Android app problem, but something doesnât seem to be working right.
I can probably make a sample file if its required to clear up the problem.
Something is odd, but here at my house I have Parasite with a Korean audio track and English subs - the English subs are auto-selected due to the foreign audio track.
In this case, for you and I (while youâre not speaking French), for this movie we wouldnât use a forced English track as the English track is already forced on us for without it we got nuthinâ. Actually, there is no use case for an English Forced track for this movie. Forced is meant to contain ONLY the Korean lines spoken in an otherwise English dominated audio track. Itâs ALL Korean and weâre gonna need a full track, not a Forced one.
Iâm not sure if this sets up the âbugâ, if there is a âbugâ, or if we give it the right stuff itâll do the right thing and one of us hasnât gotten there yetâŠlol.
My sub track is Vanilla English and the Audio track is Vanilla Korean. The setting is âshown with foreign audioâ and thatâs exactly whatâs happening here. I didnât complicate matters with a forced track as I didnât need one - neither did you, unless I missed an audio track you have and I donât.
A Forced track is quite special and almost always is in charge - unless something strange happens. There could be something strange happening here.
You need to get the term âforcedâ out of your head. Translate âforcedâ to âsubtitles for foreign parts and translations of text on screenâ.
If you have a movie with a full audio track in a foreign language, you want a âfullâ subtitle track. Hence why the track without the âforcedâ flag is chosen, because it is assumed that a subtitle track without the âforcedâ flag is a regular, full subtitle track which writes out every bit of dialog (and additionally translates foreign language text on screen).
A track with the âforcedâ flag activated is always a track which contains translations if parts of the audio track are foreign. Or if there is text on screen in a foreign language.
Never set the forced flag on a âfullâ/âcompleteâ subtitle track. It isnât appropriate.
Always keep in mind that every user of your server can have itâs own, individual language preferences. If one of them needs a âfullâ subtitle track, because of bad hearing, he will set his language preferences to âsubtitles always activatedâ. Which will pick the âfullâ subtitles over the âforcedâ ones.
But if the track with the full subtitles is mis-tagged as a forced one, the automatic track selection wonât work for this user.
Nope - Forced is always in charge - even if âAlways shownâ is selected:
Both of those tracks are embedded.
Forced is always selected.
Iâve got about a thousand of those - all behaving exactly the same - always has.
I donât make full subs Forced for foreign audio items - Plex selects the full track for me (now always, before for foreign audio until I changed the setting) and I donât know what would happen if I did have a forced track for Parasite, but @leelynds does - and itâs my understanding on Android it ainât pretty.
No itâs not.
Your discussion is a great example for the main problem of Plex subtitle settings.
I love Plex in many ways. But the subtitle settings are just awful. The description is unclear and ambiguous, the operation is unintuitive. Forced subtitles are not handled as they are meant to be and there is no way to set the settings the way any shabby video player handles them by default.
No. They are handled just like they should be handled for a server system that is used by several people at once, with potentially different language preferences.
Otherwise you would override the language prefs of those users with your own.
I do agree that there is still a lot to be desired.
I can see that supporting the âdefaultâ flag would be very useful to some users.
And a more powerful language preferences system would be nice as well, so that I donât have to change the track selections in my anime manually for every episode etc.pp.
I think the points I have criticized do not conflict with the Multi User / Different Language idea.
Besides, this is about different things. On the one hand, there is the incomplete functionality which I have now sufficiently explained. And I really appreciate it if thatâs recognized.
On the other hand there is the bad documentation and description of the settings. I have spent two days with it only to find out in the end that the behaviour I wanted is not possible. In my circle of friends 5 people use Plex, 2 of them are engineers with an excellent analytical mind. None of them uses the automatic subtitle selection, because nobody fully understands it. Also here in the forum there are very often situations where users are uncertain or have misunderstood. See @JuiceWSA who, as an obviously very experienced user, has just claimed with complete conviction that âForced is always in chargeâ - what is simply wrong. I guess he just didnât do a plex dance before his analysis.
My settings are as shown - and Forced Subtiles are always on.
Here are more - untouched (works like this right out of the box):
The behavior is exactly what is shown.
I have watched the other movies - except Bad Boys and Iâve never even seen the pre-play screen for Picard - even if you think Iâm changing them just to contradict you - and I assure you I am not.
Perhaps it doesnât work in German the way you want it to in English, but to fix that ur gonna have to get Plex to change everything, 'cause thereâs about a million of us that know how it works - or at least know how itâs been working and is working right now.
Hereâs âthe impossible boxâ - as far as I know itâs correct:
General
Unique ID : 202964865071904427573318607648917021995 (0x98B19C7304D8840C93BF25EF181FE52B)
Complete name : G:\TV - Sci-Fi\Star Trek Picard\Season 01\Star Trek Picard - S01E06 - The Impossible Box.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 1.15 GiB
Duration : 54 min 4 s
Overall bit rate : 3 036 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2020-02-28 10:43:53
Writing application : Lavf58.26.100
Writing library : Lavf58.26.100
ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 54 min 4 s
Bit rate : 2 650 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 800 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Variable
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Stream size : 1 002 MiB (85%)
Writing library : x264 core 157 r2935 545de2f
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=2650 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=62500 / vbv_bufsize=78125 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 54 min 4 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 149 MiB (13%)
Title : English
Writing library : Lavc58.46.100 ac3_fixed
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Text #1
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 39 min 24 s
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : Yes
Text #2
ID : 4
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 53 min 1 s
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Menu
00:00:00.000 : :Amazon Original
00:00:06.006 : :Previously On
00:00:59.059 : :A reoccurring dream
00:04:33.064 : :The history of the Borg Cube
00:08:49.029 : :Opening Credits
00:10:28.128 : :A lapse in judgement
00:13:32.103 : :The power of dreams
00:17:04.023 : :A plan to get into The Artifact
00:21:57.149 : :Calls to Soji's mother
00:23:04.091 : :Raffi talks about her son
00:24:51.031 : :A call to Soji's mom
00:25:49.006 : :Picard must go alone
00:27:28.147 : :37 months
00:29:32.104 : :Facing his past
00:31:57.082 : :Inquiries about Soji
00:33:58.036 : :Narek offers a solution
00:35:37.010 : :Giving hope to Borgs
00:37:53.104 : :Vulnerability
00:41:09.133 : :Exploring Soji's dream
00:48:24.110 : :Escaping the cube
00:53:06.016 : :End Credits
I didnât pull the drop down, but each of those items has two tracks - full and forced. All embedded in MKVs.
BTW:
I have watched one of my favorite Arnie / Belushi movies âRed Heatâ many times, but this new one has a forced track I never had before - that always annoyed me. Showed up this time with a forced track âenabledâ - just as you see⊠havenât watched it again yet, but I will soon. <âand itâll be great. Again.
Hmm I just took another look at the beginning of the thread and I think you may be right. My problems with the forced subs started when I tried to handle multiple languages. Whoever may be right on this point now, the ongoing discussion confirms me. Even the most experienced users have serious trouble figuring out how that thing works. Makes no difference if it is you or Otto.
It is a bit confusing for a while, but once you start thinking like Plex, not particularly itâs Userâs, itâs clearer and makes more sense.
Until you get in a discussion with a German Ninja - THE King of the Ninjas - and try to make him believe youâre not lying to himâŠlol
I am pretty certain about this, because I have many movies with at least 2 languages (contrary to you, Juice).
And I have shared users with different language preferences as well. Iâd be hearing from them if I set it up wrong, believe me 
Well, Otto what exactly do you want me to tell you?
I swear on all my dead family members thatâs the way it works.
Iâve shown you more proof than I should have to - my word should be good enough, but I donât believe Users when they tell me they named their files right either, so I have done my part, buddy.
Iâm showing you how it works in English and given you all the material you need to trot whatever you want to up the stairs at Plex HQ to get i all âfixedâ, but if you do, itâs gonna upset the English Applecart 'cause an entire continent of Users will have to change gears.
