I find this really annoying with Plex. One file might have local subtitles attached to the file listed in the following order: English Forced (SRT), English (SRT), English (SDH). By default Plex will choose the first English subtitle and be done with it. There’s no way to prefer which english subtitle I prefer. So every time I have a file with Forced SRT Subtitles as the first track I have to manually change each one to regular English (SRT) subtitles. Plex should have 2 additional settings like the last 2 in the screenshot where you can set preferred local subtitles. Or instead just apply the last 2 settings to local subtitles AND searches.
Also posted on Reddit: No way to prefer "Non Forced Subtitles" or "Non SDH Subtitles" for local subtitles
I have never seen this happen.
If SDH and Forced Subtitles are disabled I have never once seen it select SDH or Forced subs (assuming the SDH/Forced are flagged/named as such.)
How did you name those subtitles of yours?
Do the file names contain the respective suffix identifying them as forced or sdh subtitles? If so the auto-selection should pick the correct subtitle.
I didn’t name them they’re already encoded into the files I’m trying to play. Whoever encoded the video file also set the default subtitle in the file itself.
The following are 2 screenshots of the list of subtitles from the same file. One from VLC media player and one from Plex. There’s no setting in Plex to automatically choose your preferred subtitle type for local subtitles. Plex just goes with whatever subtitle the file tells it to.
Plex doesn’t consider any default tags inside the headers of an embedded subtitle. There’s an existing feature suggestion thread discussing an option to respect such tags.
Instead Plex goes by the language and subtitle type tags (e.g. English + non-forced/non-SDH). If there’s multiple subtitles with the same tag combination, Plex will pick the first of those.
If the header details of your files aren’t correct, you can usually simply edit them with an editor like MKVToolNix.
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Ok so I edited and correctly tagged the subtitles with mkvtoolnix. Put the English (SRT) track I wanted Plex to default to first in the file’s subtitle tracklist. Plex still defaults to Forced Subtitles regardless of track order. Another guy on reddiit was saying Plex defaults to Forced Subtitles automatically if they’re available which seems to be true. When I removed the “Forced Subtitle Tag” from the subtitle track with mkvtoolniix and just renamed the subtitle to “English Forced” Plex defaulted to the regular English (SRT) the subtitle track I wanted.
So in order to reliably get the same subtitle setting for all my content is to spend countless hours editing them manually (removing the “Forced Display” tag, renaming subtitle tracks and reordering them).
This would be a great feature improvement to add that I think a lot of people would use. I mean it’s already a setting in the menu but it only applies to subtitle searches (when you have no subtitles).
I have the same problem and would really appreciate this feature.
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Hey guys just coming back to this thread to post an update since it seems to be ranking high in google search.
I ended up writing a simple python script that will do this. It changes the default subtitle on all shows and movies in plex locally to the first non forced subtitle. It’s very simple to setup and run. The subtitle selections will apply to your Plex profile and be remembered on other devices.
You can download the python script on GitHub:
Screenshots:
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