I can’t reply in much detail right now… I have should have time in a week or so to come back to this.
I have seen the behavior you describe, when a media was already known to have an .SRT file, you remove it (it can’t find it on disk so can’t show it) then put it back and voila it is available again. I believe you will have to do the ‘plex dance’ to completely remove all traces of that video file and .srt first. Then, put back the video file only, no .srt, and do a refresh/metadata refresh. Confirm Plex has no reference to any .srt. NOW put the .srt back (and ensure no automatic refresh/metadata refresh will run), and play the media, I don’t believe it will know anything about the .srt. file now.
I do have subtitles always enabled, as we do want to see them regardless of audio track language, same or different than .srt file. I’ve even named them with an invalid language code (like xx) or no language code at all, and after metadata refresh Plex for Roku app (the app we use to view) will offer them. So, our installation is working perfectly with the exception of needing a metadata refresh to pick up new .srt files.
I place the subtitle in the same directory with the media file, named the same except for .srt extension, and usually it does have a two-digit language code right before the extension (like .en). Keep in mind our directory doesn’t follow plex convention, another difference from your example. Also, our one library is using the Personal Media agent, could be yet another difference from your library. Don’t know if these are a factor or if you just need to do the plex dance first for your .srt experiment.
Also, just to mention, our Plex server is up to date - except for the very last update that I saw offered in the past week, I haven’t yet put that one up. Lubuntu 22.04 host is fully up to date.
I’ll be back within a week or so. Thanks.
