# Plex not picking up external subtitle files.

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443>\
**Category:** General Discussions\
**Created:** [May 9, 2017, 1:35pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443 "2017-05-09T13:35:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 19\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 1:35pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/1 "2017-05-09T13:35:56Z")

</div>

Hi,

I’m having a problem with plex not picking up subtitles. I’ve followed the naming convention [here](https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200471133-Adding-Local-Subtitles-to-Your-Media), which says to name them as follows

> Avatar (2009).mkv  
> Avatar (2009).en.srt

and I’ve named my files as:

> Hero (2002).mp4  
> Hero (2002).en.srt

but when I open the movie in plex it show as no subtitles. I’ve tested the subs in VLC and they work fine

Its version 1.5.5.3634 on a windows 10 box.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/2 "2017-05-09T14:04:53Z")

</div>

‘Local Media Assets’ need to be active under  
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - Plex Movie  
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - TheMovieDatabase  
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - Personal Media

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 11:33am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/3 "2017-05-10T11:33:04Z")

</div>

Thanks, they are ticketed on all.

In addition subtitles work on other movies

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 11:57am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/4 "2017-05-10T11:57:32Z")

</div>

Please post the [Plex XML info](https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201998867-Investigate-Media-Information-and-Formats "Plex XML info") of the affected movie.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 2:51pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/5 "2017-05-14T14:51:24Z")

</div>

here we go:

```
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionTitle="Movies" librarySectionUUID="2149b6fa-4607-4b1e-ba40-a6f4d87b6929" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1492003074">
<Video ratingKey="23452" key="/library/metadata/23452" guid="com.plexapp.agents.imdb://tt0299977?lang=en" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/1" type="movie" title="Hero" summary="" thumb="/library/metadata/23452/thumb/1494603771" art="/library/metadata/23452/art/1494603771" duration="5951483" addedAt="1494603763" updatedAt="1494603771">
<Media videoResolution="576" id="24829" duration="5951483" bitrate="990" width="1216" height="544" aspectRatio="2.20" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="24p" optimizedForStreaming="1" audioProfile="lc" has64bitOffsets="0" videoProfile="main">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="24857" key="/library/parts/24857/1494266682/file.mp4" duration="5951483" file="G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)\Hero (2002).mp4" size="736661024" audioProfile="lc" container="mp4" has64bitOffsets="0" indexes="sd" optimizedForStreaming="1" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="24966" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="1" bitrate="972" bitDepth="8" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" frameRate="23.976" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="544" level="41" profile="main" refFrames="8" streamIdentifier="2" width="1216"/>
<Stream id="24965" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="aac" index="0" channels="2" bitrate="18" language="中文" languageCode="chi" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="lc" samplingRate="44100" streamIdentifier="1"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Extras size="0"></Extras>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MediaHorder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/mediahorder/32/160753_2.png) [@MediaHorder](https://forums.plex.tv/u/MediaHorder)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 2:54pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/6 "2017-05-14T14:54:42Z")

</div>

I always thought it was .eng

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/7 "2017-05-14T14:55:39Z")

</div>

> @danjames92 said:  
> I always thought it was .eng

Me too but I went with what plex’s site said

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MediaHorder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/mediahorder/32/160753_2.png) [@MediaHorder](https://forums.plex.tv/u/MediaHorder)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 3:15pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/8 "2017-05-14T15:15:04Z")

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> @BigHowski said:
> 
> > @danjames92 said:  
> > I always thought it was .eng
> 
> Me too but I went with what plex’s site said

It says both…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigWheel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bigwheel/32/78783_2.png) [@BigWheel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigWheel)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/9 "2017-05-14T15:19:14Z")

</div>

> @danjames92 said:  
> I always thought it was .eng

> @BigHowski said:  
> Me too but I went with what plex’s site said

as mentioned in the article linked in the first post either the 2 or 3 letter code can be used. the samples just happen to use the 2 letter. your subs are named fine

> **Movies**  
> Movie\_Name (Release Date).[Language\_Code].ext OR  
> Movies/Movie\_Name (Release Date).[Language\_Code].ext  
> Movies/Movie\_Name (Release Date).[Language\_Code].forced.ext  
> Where [Language\_Code] is defined by the ISO-639-1 (2-letter) or ISO-639-2/B (3-letter) standard and ext is the file extension. \>(Some operating systems such as Windows may hide your file extensions by default.)

would need to see the scanner and local media log at time of the scan to see if the sub file was even detected at all, if was detected why it was ignored. did the local media agent even run. is there a new log or log entries covering the time of the scan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/10 "2017-05-14T20:24:01Z")

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> @BigWheel said:
> 
> > @danjames92 said:  
> > I always thought it was .eng
> 
> > @BigHowski said:  
> > Me too but I went with what plex’s site said
> 
> as mentioned in the article linked in the first post either the 2 or 3 letter code can be used. the samples just happen to use the 2 letter. your subs are named fine
> 
> > **Movies**  
> > Movie\_Name (Release Date).[Language\_Code].ext OR  
> > Movies/Movie\_Name (Release Date).[Language\_Code].ext  
> > Movies/Movie\_Name (Release Date).[Language\_Code].forced.ext  
> > Where [Language\_Code] is defined by the ISO-639-1 (2-letter) or ISO-639-2/B (3-letter) standard and ext is the file extension. \>(Some operating systems such as Windows may hide your file extensions by default.)
> 
> would need to see the scanner and local media log at time of the scan to see if the sub file was even detected at all, if was detected why it was ignored. did the local media agent even run. is there a new log or log entries covering the time of the scan

I added a file a while a go, I could remove it and kick off an update would that do?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigWheel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bigwheel/32/78783_2.png) [@BigWheel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigWheel)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/11 "2017-05-14T20:58:38Z")

</div>

> @BigHowski said:  
> I added a file a while a go, I could remove it and kick off an update would that do?

yeah that should be fine

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 10:06pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/12 "2017-05-14T22:06:38Z")

</div>

Logs attached

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anon18523487](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@anon18523487](https://forums.plex.tv/u/anon18523487)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 6:27am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/13 "2017-05-15T06:27:41Z")

</div>

What is the movie that you are testing with. Not knowing which movie to look for, I did find a few things in your log.

> Found subtitle file: F:\Movies\War\The Deer Hunter (1978)\The Deer Hunter (1978)\_spa.srt

That’s wrong. Should be a dot not an underscore.

> Found subtitle file: F:\Movies\Western\Bone Tomahawk (2015)\English.srt  
> Found subtitle file: F:\Movies\SiFi\Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)\english.srt

Those won’t work.

> Found subtitle file: G:\New Movies\Chef (2014)\Chef (2014) [AT-Team].srt

Is this movie named like that too?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 7:59pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/14 "2017-05-15T19:59:51Z")

</div>

Its Hero, as per the original post

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigWheel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bigwheel/32/78783_2.png) [@BigWheel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigWheel)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/15 "2017-05-15T20:15:32Z")

</div>

It doesn’t look like the local media agent kicked off after the scan at all since it did not think anything changed.

```
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.116 [10864] DEBUG - Performing a scan with 'Plex Movie Scanner' (language: en virtual: 0).
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.116 [10864] DEBUG - * Scanning G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.116 [10864] DEBUG - * Scanning directory G:\New Movies\Hero (2002) (parent: yes)
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.117 [10864] DEBUG - Adding file for scanner: G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)\Hero (2002).en.srt
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.117 [10864] DEBUG - Adding file for scanner: G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)\Hero (2002).enHI.srt
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.117 [10864] DEBUG - Adding file for scanner: G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)\Hero (2002).es.srt
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.117 [10864] DEBUG - Adding file for scanner: G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)\Hero (2002).fr.srt
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.118 [10864] DEBUG - Adding file for scanner: G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)\Hero (2002).mp4
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.118 [10864] DEBUG - Adding file for scanner: G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)\Hero (2002).nfo
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.118 [10864] DEBUG - Adding file for scanner: G:\New Movies\Hero (2002)\Hero.[Ying.xiong].2002.BluRay.720p.H264.jpg
May 14, 2017 23:06:00.121 [10864] DEBUG - Skipping over directory 'Hero (2002)', as nothing has changed; removing 1 media items from map.

```

Please do the Plex Dance on the Hero movie. move the entire folder out of your “new movies” directory, scan, empty trash and make sure to “clean bundles” before adding it back and scanning it back in,

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/16 "2017-05-17T15:37:18Z")

</div>

> Please do the [Plex Dance](https://forums.plex.tv/t/the-plex-dance/197064) on the Hero movie. move the entire folder out of your “new movies” directory, scan, empty trash and make sure to “clean bundles” before adding it back and scanning it back in,

Hi,

That was done just before the logs were taken

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/17 "2017-05-17T15:43:40Z")

</div>

Did it again. I took the following steps:

- File moved @ 16:38 local time.
- Update on the movies library 16:39 (movie goes from within Plex front end)
- Emptied trash
- cleaned bundles
- Added file back in @ 16:40
- Update library @ 16:41
- Hero appears back in the plex front end

Hero still shows as no subtites. New log attached

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigHowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@BigHowski](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigHowski)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/18 "2017-05-17T15:58:01Z")

</div>

Just in case it matters, this movie also suffers from the metadata not downloading issue that I have reported elsewhere

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 11:14pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-not-picking-up-external-subtitle-files/191443/19 "2020-01-07T23:14:11Z")

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