I honestly donât like multi audio files in Plex at all. I watch both western made shows (of many original languages) and japanese anime. Setting my Language to English will make Plex pick the english dub for anime. Setting my language to Japanese will end up with Plex picking the japanese dub on movies. Iâd wish Plex had some logic that made it able to set the contents original language insteadâŠ
My solution has been to purge my library of languages I donât want Plex to use. It canât pick the wrong one if itâs only one language to pick. >:|
The feature is working as expected. Youâre in the same situation as Manujito above. Youâve specified Japanese as your preferred audio language. So when you pick Japanese audio track, that is your preferred language so it doesnât think you need full subtitles so it picks the forced one. Picking the English audio track, this is now not your preferred, so it picks the full subtitle.
I get you both are using that setting to choose the audio track you want to play and not necessarily being the language you understand, but thatâs not what it was intended for.
While I donât personally agree with it, it can be argued that anime doesnât really have an âoriginalâ language since itâs not live action and the characters are not supplying their own dialog. 
I have a series or two that were joint productions and aired with Japanese audio in Japan and Mandarin audio in China.
Better solutions suggested:
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I disagree. If itâs mainly made in Japan with Japanese voice actors itâs Japanese. If itâs mainly made in China itâs Chinese. Subcontractors doesnât count.
E: The per library setting would solve it. I agree on that.
E2: I still think just not letting Plex have the ablity to pick is the realistic solution. 
Using âoriginalâ language or a per library/series setting would not fully help in this case. It only solves the issue of which auto track to default to. Plex still would not know if you actually know that language or not so it wouldnât know when to show the subtitles.
What is missing is the logic needs to be reversed and instead of choosing the subtitle based on audio language, it should always display the subtitle if it exists in the chosen language, then decide forced or full based on if the audio language matches the chosen subtitle language.
No, I think weâre conflating the issue here with how the language track preferences are set up. Forced Subs are supposed to translate things that are not covered by the dominant language of the programâs audio track. Mainly written text on screen, but can also cover short passages of dialog that are deliberately left in a foreign language for story-reasons.
So, by definition, Plex should not be choosing a forced subtitle track for an audio track that is not the same language, because forced subs are meant to complement the audio track of the same.
Which language track I prefer for audio is not the same question as âwhat is your native languageâ (really the UX language preference would be a better way to ask this in a roundabout way).
This is where the disconnect is, because that is what Plex is implying/asking with that setting. And the logic on showing a subtitle is based on that implication. Which is why I suggest the logic needs to change and not use the audio language as the determination.
This is why subtitles exist though. Pick original audio language, then use the subtitle language you configured.
But what if the file doesnât have that audio language. Now an English track would be considered foreign and the current setting to show âwith foreign audioâ would trigger the full English subtitles be shown.
That have to be a very niche scenario⊠
Anyway, Iâve configured Plex to use English, with subtitles always on. It will pick Japanese, or whatever other language is available if itâs the only audio language available anyway and show me English subtitles. This works for me and is predictable.
As I mentioned in my post last August, if I have âAutomatically select audio and subtitle tracksâ turned on, but leave the âPreferred Audio Languageâ on âSelect Languageâ (which arguably I shouldnât be able to do, and is a bug in itself), Plex is choosing the correct subtitle tracks. English audio chooses Forced English Subs, Japanese audio chooses Full Subtitles.
Using your logic, how does Plex know which subtitle track to use since I havenât defined my ânative audioâ language yet?
If this expected behavior, why is OttoKerner implying this was something fixed before that has come back?
Why does DaveBinM also imply there is something not working right here.
And none of this addresses the fact Forced Subs are not made to be shown with a foreign audio track.
Plex has been using these account settings as the excuse for why they donât need to implement either of the feature requests I linked above, but clearly the settings do not cover that functionality. I could leave the audio unset as I mentioned here, but then every episode will default to the first audio track in the file, and I am now forced to change it on every episode (so canât use autoplay now, without doing it all in advance), unless I use a third-party tool like PASTA.
Thatâs exactly the issue. The part that is missing is the logic. âForcedâ subtitles are usually assigned to parts where the same audio language doesnât fully cover the translation.
If i select âalways show subtitlesâ, i want FULL subtitles, regardless of the audio language.
But your suggested solutions is a good way to make it work.
Default to your preferred audio language, default to your preferred subtitle language, and then:
- if audio and subtitle language are the same, choose the forced track
- if audio and subtitle language are not the same, choose non-forced track
I still think there should be more options. But this would be a great start.
The default is English if the preferred language canât be found or in your case not set.
I donât know. My guess is there was a bug where this wasnât working even with the same language for both settings.
There is still an open issue where using the âalways show subtitlesâ should always use the full subtitles, but it still picks âforcedâ.
Yes, exactly. Thatâs a better way of saying what I was trying to say above.
Not to editorialize this, but thatâs a rather Western-centric way of handling it. 
Really, if no audio preference is set, the system should be choosing:
- The audio track actually flagged as âDefaultâ in the MKV headers, if present.
- The first audio track in order (which for most ripped discs is the dominant language for country of sale, or the original audio language of the program).
Thank you! That is what I was inquiring about.
When you said âthe feature is working as expectedâ, if Plex was taking my audio preference set to Japanese to mean I am saying I am a native Japanese speaker, I didnât see the logic in giving me only Forced subs in a language I (supposedly) didnât understand.
(However, as far as niche situations go, I used to have a Japanese roommate and she would watch English television programs with the closed captions on while she was working on her English.)
Really Manujitoâs post summarizes this best:
So why has an issue that seems so minor continued to be âinvestigatedâ so long and not fixed? I have another subtitle issue that is also super-small and being systematically ignored.
If you choose English as the subtitle language, then it means you read English. Or more like you would rather read English than read Japanese.
Sure but it works for 90+% of Plex users. And users have the option of choosing the language, you just chose not to.
For me, the investigation I was referring to was to make sure the languages are being chosen as I explained. There was a bug when this wasnât working. Any other investigation would be to decide if this alternative method would be better than what is done now. There was a reason the current method was used, so itâs not something thatâs just going to change on a whim.
Itâs been another couple of months. Any news?
Wouldnât it be easier to just add a âalways show FULL subtitlesâ option while the team works on the logic behind the rest of them?
I mean. Default selection is a neat feature, but I just canât take advantage of this anymore and itâs been too long. Too long.
You know who does this the right way? Netflix. And itâs easy too. They just default to your latest choice. Thatâs it. That works.
Not to sound ungrateful for the service Plex provides, but itâs just been lackluster on the easiest and most important of things lately.
Despite the lack of communication, after updating to 1.23.2.4625, subtitles now act as I want them to. Every movie now defaults to english audio with full italian subtitles.
I have no idea if this is a bug, and Iâm once again relying on it, or if there has been a change in the subtitle logic.
I hope itâs the latter, because I really donât want to be stuck again on an old version for years.
@anon18523487 If possible, I would love some clarification. If the subtitle logic has been revised it means I can safely update in the future.
P.S. and if it hasnât, please donât fix it! 
It seems to me like the logic has been updated as per some of our suggestions above.
If I switch my preferred audio language to Italian, Plex changes the default subtitles to the Forced ones, meaning it now knows when audio and subtitles languages donât match.
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Thanks for the ping. This is very good news. Iâm still holding onto an older server version right now, though. Waiting for the dust to settle a bit on these new toolchain PMS builds and the Home Screen changes before I update things. Will probably when 1.23.3 hits public (non-beta) release.
