Foreign SRT subtitles causing streaming issues on Plex for Roku

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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When I add a foreign language (French) SRT subtitle file to one of my movies or TV shows on Plex, the video streaming on my Roku immediately starts lagging and buffering, making it unwatchable. I have tried the standard solution offered on the Plex support site – switching the subtitle burn settings from “Always” to “Only Image Formats” – but this does not solve the problem. This buffering does not happen when I select English SRT subtitles for the same video, only the French OpenSubtitles SRT file. This is also ONLY a problem when I watch Plex through the Roku on my TV, not when I watch the same video on the Plex Web Player on my computer.

My technical skills are limited, but I would be grateful if someone knows of a fix and can give me easy-to-follow instructions.

2 Likes
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Thank you Steveka for bringing this up. I am about to report the same issue, exactly the same syntom on my Roku player. The only different will be i am using Khmer SRT file.

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I have the same exact issue. This used to work properly, up until a year ago I think. Since then, any srt subtitle in French will trigger Plex to transcode the video to burn in the subtitles, even if that option is disabled. Renaming the same subtitle file to have english in the title will not cause transcoding.
Definitely looks like a bug.
This only happens on my Roku client (profile = Roku-7.x.xml)

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I don’t know if this is related because it’s not a Roku but I thought I’d link it.

This is an LG tv but it sounds very similar

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I’ve had the same issues for years on my TCL Roku. If I change the metadata of my french subs to english, it doesn’t burn in.

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I have a quick workaround which to start the content without any subtitle. Wait the start of the video and enable the subtitles with the playback settings.

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Interesting… Does this work for you? What kind of Roku do you have?

I tried, but the result is the same (TCL tv, 55R617, Roku version 12, build 4182… Plex is version 7.5, build 1)
Once the video starts, I enable the French subtitles and it will start transcoding immediately.
If I use English subtitles, no transcoding takes place. Very weird issue.

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The only work around I Know of is to change the METADATA of the subtitles to English. It’s not a solution

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