Server Version#: 1.25.1.5286
Player Version#: 1.39.1.2763-300bb607
So I have been working the past 3 weeks getting my plex server back setup and its taken most of my vacation time this past week, and I think I am starting to losses it lol
Take this Anime Episode for Example you would think it would set the Audio to Jap and Sub to Eng but nope
Audio is Eng and no subs…
I have tried refreshing the meta data, re-analyzing it, removing the item from the library then cleaning the bundles and optimizing the database but no luck.
Any way to get this to work without using pastatool?
Also any one found a good way to have plex play the next episode using the same selected language? Half tempted at this point to just add a 2nd library of everything if im stuck using pastatool to set them up 1 with eng and forced and the other with jap and eng.
Unfortunately PLEX doesn’t actually honor the default flags but it should honor the forced flag (which based on your screenshot I think you are misunderstanding how that is actually supposed to work which is a common occurrence). I honestly have no clue how PLEX actually handles the audio it selects as I always create a stereo track if there isn’t one and set that as both the first audio track and default (when I add media I manually select the best audio track [generally the surround track] for my account and any other account I control/have access to that I want to have the best audio track).
This actually causes a couple of issues, the one you mentioned and the fact that PLEX decided that a stereo track is always going to be preferred over a mono track, so if you have a mono track as the default track but then have, say, a commentary track which is stereo as the second, that will auto get selected (A Christmas Story is a perfect example of this as the main track is mono and it had a commentary track which was stereo).
That said you can set auto select options for audio and subtitles by going to Settings from the web app (the wrench icon) and then in the left menu click on Account at the top. On the right panel you will see a “Audio & Subtitle Setting” that you can then click on and it will expand with options you can change. If you check the “Automatically select audio and subtitle tracks” and then set your preferred language for audio and subtitle in the respective drop downs and set the “Auto-Select Subtitle Mode” drop down to “Shown with Foreign Audio”, you’ll get the subs in your preferred language auto selected when you select the foreign audio (as compared to what you selected for your preferred language). Once you set those (and you confirm your forced flags are set properly after reading the next paragraphs), when you select the Japanese track, the first English subtitle would automatically be set.
Now, to my comment about forced subtitles and you possibly misunderstanding that setting.
Forced subtitles actually go with the same language, i.e., audio language is English, forced subs would be English. Using Anime as an example, this would work as follows. You watch the Anime dubbed in English but the opening and ending songs along with maybe some signs are in Japanese. In this particular case, you don’t necessarily need subtitles on for the whole show (though some people do prefer to do that) so this is where forced subs come in. The forced subs only contain text during the opening and ending songs along with any signs that appear in Japanese so you know what they say.
Another example of forced subs would be something like Star Wars where you are watching in English (or your native language) and you come up to a seen with an extra terrestrial [ET] (the Greedo and Han scene for instance) where the ET doesn’t speak the language you are watching the film in. At this point, the forced subs would appear in your native language so that you can understand what the character is saying. Not using an ET, the same can be applied to watching a movie in your native language and then they come to a scene where they are speaking a foreign language so the forced subs appear so you know what they are saying.
Signs, foreign dialog in eng track may have a forced eng sub to go with it.
And setting an account wide default does not fix the problem just makes it worse.
ATM I am starting the horrible task of setting up a duplicate library for anime so I can have one set with eng and the other with jap just have to edit them as they get added.
Was playing around with Emby and its not much better.
It grabs the defualt audio track I set for anime (Jap) but is using the forced Eng sub not the default Eng sub…
Looks like both plex and Emby have no idea what forced and default mean.
Still going to set this all properly with MKVToolNix in the hopes that one day the application figures out what the flags do…
There is a feature request about dealing with default tracks and such.
I’m not sure what it’s called but if you do a search in the feature suggestion section you should be able to find it. I think I voted on it, but I no longer have any more votes as I either have to remove it from something I voted on or the feature gets implemented and the thread closed so the vote is released.
I do actually have ideas that could either be added to that or it’s own feature which would go into allowing different default settings per client for each account (I think I even had some crazy idea of having a default for the account and then it could get overridden at the client level, for instance saying at the account level you prefer stereo normally and then maybe your default codecs (advanced settings) would be Dolby, DTS, FLAC or something like that but then on say one client, you would actually prefer surround sound, so you could change the settings for that client so that it will auto select the best surround track available (DTS-HD vs the normal DTS track for instance). The benefit of that is if most people you stream only use a stereo system and you put a stereo track, that can get selected by default and help reduce some transcoding from surround to stereo.
Anyway, that was all slightly tangenty, but at least you know, as much as it’s not the answer you wanted to hear, that you can’t really accomplish what you want in a way you would think would work.
I use MKVtoolnix to remove those language tracks (audio or subtitles) I don’t want.
If there are forced English subtitles natively on the disc, that’s telling me there is a need for them so I include them AND make sure the ENG and FORCED fields are set.
And the auto option is crap… as its is this all or nothing.
So automatically my Anime with both English and jap audio tracks will now default to English.
If this was a per library option you could get away with it, but not at the account level.
I would not think its that hard to do properly
On import of show load default audio and sub track as listed.
If audio track is changed to eng see if there is a forced eng sub track
If you change audio to jap see if there is a forced jap sub track
Maybe then an account wide setting would only make sense to override the force jap subtitle to be the eng one and not the forced eng one.
Atm im just looking through the feature request list to see what i should vote on. Apparently setting lang/subs at the show level is one I voted on back in 2017.
Yeah checking that breaks everything as I have said.
1st Post.
Last windows app as it also has the management tools built into it also use the web app but that’s what I took the screen shot from.
I will say that the hummer of this is not lost on me.
Its a request from 2017 and 9th on the top list skipping what has already been implemented.
You can do it with a 3rd party tool or script but not in the software it’s self.
I don’t really have any recommendations as they’ve just been feature requests I’ve seen as browsing the forums.
Also, just to point out, the screenshot you posted of the audio and subtitle settings screen, the two settings you are showing are for searching subtitles and not for the actual auto selection.
