Yes, but at least in the two screen shots you sent, the Sony is clearly going through the relay, so it seems like there are two issues, and one MIGHT be effecting the other.
Check the app on the Bravia and see what the connection security settings are at. I don’t use any of the TV apps so I don’t know the exact wording, but it should have some options along the lines of “secure connections only” and “allow insecure connections.” Try toggling that option, then see if that solves the direct play issue.
You may also need to toggle those same connections on the server. I find that I need to have mine set to “preferred” or else I have issues with some clients being forced through the relay. You can find that under Settings - Network on the server.
I’ve tried all three settings on the TV for “allow insecure connections”; “always”, “on the same network” and “never”. None of them affect the way subtitles are displayed.
I’m running out of ideas… Given your statements, and screen shots, it appears to be an issue with the Bravia itself, not the Plex client… Here are a couple of shots in the dark…
Are all of the movies that don’t display subtitles properly being hardware transcoded? If yes, try disabling hardware transcoding and see if the behavior changes.
Take a movie that doesn’t play with subtitles correctly on the Bravia, make note of the details (.mkv, .mp4, h264, h265, etc) and compare it to the details of a movie that DOES play properly with subtitles. See if you notice a common theme among the movies that don’t work properly. Looking at it right through Plex is probably easiest…
The last thing I just noticed is that Gladiator is using an external .SRT file for subtitles while It’s A Wonderful Life is using embedded subtitles. I don’t know enough about how subtitles work to articulate my thoughts on that, but I feel that it could again come down to a codec issue. Do you have an external .SRT file for It’s A Wonderful Life? If you do, select the external for the subtitle option and see if the Bravia plays it.
These are just shots in the dark, but maybe they’ll lead you in the right direction.
If you read above, you’ll see that I’ve tried both external and embedded subtitles. At first, it was external but during troubleshooting, I used FFPMEG to embed them. Embedded or external Bravia won’t display them for ONLY this movie. Embedded or external, subtitles for this movie appear on all other TVs, phones, and server.
FYI: I tried casting from phone but … casting doesn’t work.
Sorry, I missed that you tried the different subtitles.
Casting has been hit or miss for me for years with Plex. It’s worked maybe 3 times total of the 20 I’ve tried it.
Given that it’s only that particular movie and only the Sony, it seems obvious it’s something with the movie file itself and the way Plex is encoding it, but given that the info of our two versions match, I’m have no idea what it could be.
I’m not sure if this will help you, since I do not have a Sony TV to test my theory, but I have seen where some TVs will have their own subtitle/closed caption settings that will prevent Plex from displaying subtitles. I’ve seen this issue on one more than one brand of TV, so I thought it worth mentioning.
