Server Version#: 1.20.0.3181
Player Version#: Plex for Web 4.39.1
Using the latest Plex movie agent, I am a bit confused as to subtitle behavior. I first noticed that if I added an external .srt sub, this would trigger Plex’s automatic library scan like before. However, this library scan did not actually seem to add the external sub as an option. I tried doing a manual scan of my entire library, and it did not pick up new subs. However, as soon as I did a metadata refresh, the sub showed up.
Is this correct? Why does a metadata refresh, not an analyze or scan cause the subtitles to be displayed? Metadata refreshes won’t happen automatically like scans as subs are added
Second thing I noticed is that if I had a foreign movie with internal subs already pre-selected (since I prefer English subs with foreign audio), this new external sub, once added due to a metadata refresh, would automatically become the default option. The library setting to prefer local assets could be checked or unchecked, it made no difference. Earlier, these subs would be added in the dropdown menu, but would not supersede any internal subs.
Is this behavior correct? I am not sure if something is happening on the library level related to scans/local assets, or if Plex is trying to select the srt sub over the internal pgs sub because it has better client support.
I think both cases above were not how the legacy agent behaved, so I was curious how these external subs are working now.
External subs are ‘Local Media Assets’ and are handled by an agent. That’s why you need to Refresh Metadata to recognize external subtitles.
Normally, new external subs should get recognized automatically (i.e. without a full refresh) if you leave the preplay page of the movie and re-enter it.
Here comes a second bug into play: the web app sometimes doesn’t update the preplay pages after the item got modified (by editing it, or by refreshing metadata etc).
So until this bug is fixed, you may want to refresh the whole web app (F5), to force it to reload all the data.
Yes, if you add an external subtitle to a movie, which already has an embedded subtitle, this external subtitle will get selected over the embedded one.
The reasoning is, that you wouldn’t add an external subtitle unless the embedded one is faulty and you therefore don’t want to use it.
Regarding the first point, your reply actually makes sense to me. However, it also means that if you use something like Bazarr to automate grabbing subs, there is no automated way to pick them up in Plex. I see automatic scans being initiated every time a sub is added to a folder, but I would need to also manually refresh metadata as well then as the library scan doesn’t seem to actually do anything.
For the second point, it makes perfect sense.
Can you confirm this behavior is the way it used to work in the prior agent? I didn’t test it in-depth when I was still using it, but I feel like both of these points are new behaviors though.
