ok, i found the issue. most tv shows downloaded from net are in .mp4, .avi, or .mkv formats. usually the metadata for these is not set ie the audio language shows as "unknown audio". plex uses this to determine what subtitle file to grab. hence if "unknown" it won't go grab the english subtitle. maybe developers can modify the fetching routine and not look at the audio language of the file and instead use the default subtitle language setting and always fetch that no matter what audio language the file has. currently this is what happens.
Tip!: If the language for a track is not set (i.e. it is detected as "unknown"), it will be treated as if it doesnot match your preferred language settings.
it really shouldn't matter if it doesn't match. like if i have a file and the audio is in Russian i would still want english subtitles so just download them based on title and preferred subtitle language setting. this would be beneficial i think.
well a setting or foreign only would be better option. i still want eng subtitles on eng videos. sometime i'll have a show running in room with people talking and such and with the subs on you can still follow the show.
Copying (and bumping since according to the mods my post is a duplicate request of this) -->
Hey There,
I’ve been using Plex for a number of years, but with recent changes to the server, I’ve decided to open it up to various family members. One thing that is quite the inconvenience is how Plex handles tracks that are tagged as “unknown” audio.
In a nutshell, Plex assumes that “unknown” audio is not in your preferred language (in my case English). This is annoying, as it will then enable subtitles if you have the “Shown with Foreign Audio” setting enabled. This can cause confusion for less savvy users who just want a set and forget solution. The alternative is to have “Manual Subtitles” selected, but this then causes issue’s with movies/TV that has a “Forced” subtitle track.
Furthermore, I think it’s safe to assume that any media that was downloaded/ripped would be done in the native language. Even assuming that this is wrong, a user would notice instantly the problem and be able to fix it.
So what I propose is that either “unknown” audio tracks are either assumed to be in the preferred language, or (preferably) that an advanced option exists to set the language for “unknown” on the server. This should be the preferred method, as it won’t impact current functionality.
Finally, I know some scripts exist to do this through modifying the DB, so I imagine that the tech behind this request is not to difficult.
Thanks for an awesome product, and thanks for (hopefully!) implementing this change.
~Spritz
EDIT - It should be noted that without this change, it reduces the usefulness of the automatic language selection of Plex, which is a great feature.
Please implement something like this. A setting to classify unknown audio as english (or other language) would be very helpful. Currently to get around this I have disabled subtitles for all my users by manually updating the DB… This is not ideal because with any movie that is in a foreign language, or if it has foreign parts and a “Forced” subtitle track, then the end user has to manually select a subtitle track to enable it. This is not a big deal for tech savvy users but for the others it causes a lot of issues.
Please consider adding a feature to globally classify “unknown” audio tracks as your preferred language. Ex: you add a setting that states “Treat unknown audio tracks as: English”…
How can we get someone from Plex to actually make this change? This is something simple but would make a huge difference in the usability of subtitles.
I agree with Spritzup that the automatic language selection of Plex is a great feature but is almost useless without being able to classify unknown audio tracks as my local language.
