I am using Plex Server on Linux to watch movies on my TV using Chromecast (2nd generation). I always have subtitles on (I am not a native English speaker) and the subtitles are always external SRT file (while the movies themselves are in various different video formats). The SRT subtitles are also from various sources so there is no way they can all be corrupted in similar manner. I don’t use Plex server for anything else than Chromecast streaming.
The strange occurence is that the subtitles almost always (i.e. in about 19 cases out of 20) stop appearing about 5-10 minutes before the end of the movie. If I subsequently rewind 10 seconds back, the subtitles reappear and display correctly for the rest of the movie. It always happens about 5-10 minutes before the end of the movie, regardless if the movie is 90 minutes long or 150 minutes long. It did NOT happen with video files shorter than 60 minutes, but I watched only 3 of those. It got to the point that during the final minutes of the movie, I am usually already prepared with my phone in hand and waiting for the subtitles to disappear so that I can press “skip 10 seconds back” button and make them reappear.
It’s very hard to get more details for this bug and reproduce it reliably because I always have to wait at least 80 minutes for it to manifest itself. When I rewind directly to, say, final 20 minutes of the movie, the bug never occurs. I am using Plex server for at least 2 years and while the subtitles occassionally dropped out before, the bug descibed above started appearing consistently for all feature movies about 6 months ago.
Apart from this bug, my experience with Plex server is absolutely flawless.
Server Version#: 1.18.3.2156
Player Version#: Chromecast
Same issue here. SRT subtitles stop playing at the end of a video. However, it also happens for videos shorted than 60 minutes here. For a 40 minute video, the last 1-2 minutes loses subtitles, even though they are still enabled according to the Android app.
Server Version#: 1.18.3.2156 running on Ubuntu Server 18.04
Player Version#: Chromecast
Same issue in same scenario. Plex Server on Ubuntu based distro and playing on Chromecast gen 2.
In my case, it happens only with external .srt files. When the subtitles are within the mkv file they go smooth.
Server Version#: 1.18.3.2156 running on Pop!_OS 19.10
Player Version#: Chromecast
I have a similar issue. I do not use Chrome cast, but I use the Plex App on my Samsung TV to connect to my Ubuntu Plex server. My Plex version on my Ubuntu PC (version 18.04.3 LTS) is 1.18.4.2171. My subtitles disappear regularly, but not always, approximately 2 minutes before the end of the mkv file. So far I have the impression that manually modifying something at the end of the external srt file might fix the problem (not sure tough). I have a Plex server on W10 where the problem does not occur, so it seems that the problem is specifically linked to Plex on Ubuntu. As the CPU consumption is way better on Ubuntu than on W10, I prefer to use Plex on Ubuntu .
I’m seeing the same issue, my server is on a Synology NAS (so not Ubuntu) and playing back on an LG TV. Subtitles disappear at the end of shorter (~40 mins) videos as well - I’ll try rewinding the next time as suggested here.
Any ideas what’s going wrong?
It’s rather ridiculous that using plain old DLNA from the NAS (without Plex) I had absolutely no issues with playback, while using Plex such a simple functionality as displaying subtitles are broken.
I did some additional testing and manually modifying the end of the srt file does not make things better. In fact the problem appears quite randomly. After a short rewind of the media file, the srt file is visible again. I noticed that there is no problem when you select an internal subtitle file (which makes sense).
I noticed that the subtitles disappear if a episode is 42 minutes long or shorter in time. As soon as an episode has a time length of 43 minutes, the subtitles do not disappear.
I’ve got an update to this issue. Today I got a slightly different experience: The whole movie played through correctly (no disappearing subtitles). But during the end titles of the movie, the subtitles from earlier part of the movie started appearing! The movie length was 2 hours and 2 minutes (“No Country for Old Men”). Around 1:58, the subtitles from 01:02:26 started appearing and popped up until the very end of the movie - correctly timed respectively to each other, i.e. all of them time-shifted by approx. 56 minutes.
Otherwise, my issue still persists with around 95% of all movies I stream to my Chromecast.
I’m facing the same issue since very long, cannot say how long. Any video I watch (always MP4 videos with external SRT subtitles) stop showing subtitles when the video gets close to the end. I noticed that the time left depends on the video length, so it can be probably a percentage of the video (I’d risk to guess 10% left, because it happens around 5 minutes before a 42 minutes TV show episode ends). It has been happening on several PMS versions (I’m running the latest one - there is no update available- on a Synology NAS and watching always on Samsung Tizen OS smart TVs).
There is a workaround that works 10 out of 10 times: when the subtitles stop, rewind the video a couple seconds (one “push” in the left button does the trick.
If is there any logs or files the developers need to be updated in order to troubleshoot this, just let me know. I’ll be glad to help.
I don’t want to be overly optimistic but it seems to me that this problem was “magically solved by itself” in my home system, at some time in the last 2-3 weeks. I have no idea how, I don’t remember changing something in Plex config. I am not even sure I updated Plex during that time. But the subtitles now seem to work correctly until the end of the movie. Weird.
Hi @fuxoft, thanks for the reply. This issue is very, very old. I’ve found another thread mentioning it (Subtitles stop showing at the end of a video) and they mentioned a probable solution in a PMS version of Dec’17 (Plex Media Server). But I’m on version 1.18.9.2578 and the issue still happens.
I’m now on 1.19.1.2701 (Debian 10 i686) still same issue. Almost exclusively watching over Chromecast 2nd gen. On a ~21 minute clip, subtitles disappears in the last ~1-2 minutes.
I can also confirm the 10 seconds back temp. workaround.
Same thing on my side on LG webOS TV. Multiple threads have been mentioning this issue for months (search for “subtitles stop” for instance) and I found none with an answer from Plex. So frustrating!
PMS got a few new versions since we last updated this thread and, so far, no solution for this issue that seems to affect several users. It’s important to highlight that this does not affect only Chromecast, as I have a Samsung TV, Thilas has a LG one… please Plex developers, help us here!
I have several devices… And the issues are only for chromecast. It apparently forces a transcode which is not a problem - but the subtittles are there, then they aren’t and then they come back. I made sure the .srt files are UTF-8 before retrying and that didn’t change anything.
I’ve upgrade PMS to version 1.19.4.2935 in my Synology and the issue remains. Have been running it in a Samsung Tizen TV running Plex client version 4.29.6.
No updates from Plex developers? Will we continue facing this annoying glitch for long?
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