Server Version#: 1.40.5 (macOS 10.13.6)
Player Version#: Web player
I am having the issue that external SRTs are not immediately recognized by Plex Server on my server, if files are added as a complete folder, which is what I do pretty much all the time. The issue stems from the fact that alphabetically, the movie files are copied to my server after the subtitles.
For instance, my converted movie is named “MyMovie.m4v”, while my subtitle is named “MyMovie.en.srt”. The latter gets copied first, simply because I adhere to Plex’s naming conventions, and “.e” is alphabetically before “.m” in Finder.
The solutions are to either copy the SRT files over manually after the movie OR move the SRT files out of the folder and back in OR reload metadata for the folder. Of course this works, but when you have to do so for every single movie you add to your server, it becomes pretty tedious. I couldn’t surely be the only person with this issue?
Hence, is there a way to make the server always check the folder contents automatically, after the movie is registered? Or create a server entry just based on the presence of a subtitle file?
External subtitles are checked again for presence once the user is entering the movie’s preplay page.
IF the server is not busy doing other things, like scanning the very library where the movie is in, or analysing, or updating metadata.
Strategies to improve behaviour and responsiveness:
store each movie in its own subfolder, so that the server doesn’t have to scan a large folder full of files for fitting subtitles
only scan the library for new additions after you are sure that all files have been copied – i.e. don’t use the automatic library scan
avoid “touching” your media folders without need. e.g. don’t wite into any files in it if there are no actual changes. If you use external apps and scripts, teach them to behave themselves and not write in your media folder all the time. Otherwise the server has no choice but to scan the whole library to look for changes (instead of just the “changed” folders). Which in turn may just take so much time, that you think it is not detecting your external subs, when it actually is just busy scanning your media and will do the update of subtitles later.
External subtitles are considered metadata.
Thus, if you want to Plex to recognize newly added subtitles, trigger an “Refresh Metadata” on the movie. “Analyze” may only detect internal subtitles.
Let your server scan for external subtitles during the server maintenance. “Refresh local metadata every three days” is the right task to enable. This should pick up any external subtitles if they were missed during the initial library scan. https://support.plex.tv/articles/201553286-scheduled-tasks/
