Hi all! I’m trying to get subtitles working with TV show extras? From reading here, i know support is limited on some platforms, but I can’t get it to work with my android smart tv, web browser, or android phone. At first I tried an external subtitle file, but then I just put it in the MKV container so it was embedded. The subtitles work flawlessly when i play the video with VLC. My folder structure for plex looks like this:
\Shows\VH1 Storytellers\Interviews\Q&A With Bruce Springsteen - s08e02.mkv
Again, the video plays fine across all the devices, but the subtitles refuse to show up on any platform. Any thoughts?
They worked fine in Movies, but TV shows would not see them until I did one of the following:
Solution:
1.) do the plex dance (https://forums.plex.tv/t/the-plex-dance/197064), the subtitles will eventually show up if they are embedded.
2.) make a season 99 folder and just put it in there as a regular episode, and the subtitles work without the Plex dance.
This is the first TV show i’ve done, so hopefully I don’t have to do the plex dance every time.
I’ve just tried to reproduce this with the new-experience apps and (embedded) subtitles seem to be working perfectly fine:
subtitles can be selected from the player UI
forced subtitles are recognized and will be selected according to my account language preferences
So it should at least work on your Android phone.
I was also able to confirm on a slightly outdated Android TV client (my tv only supports version 10.4.0.4843, which dates back to late 2023)… so there’s a chance it might not be working on the current version of the client (though, I consider that to be unlikely).
What exactly isn’t working for you?
Edit: Plex Web is obviously more limited as it only supports show-level extras. Though, I found a show of mine with such extras and could also see / select the subtitles during playback.
The main issue I think I had that forced me to do the plex dance to get it to work, was that when I merged the SRT into the MKV, i did it live in the media folder plex was using for the tv shows, and I think it just got stuck that that MKV had no subtitles. That’s my best guess why I didn’t work immediately after I merged and refreshed the metadata.
Updating local extras in-place is a bit convoluted.
In order for the server to perform a new Analysis on the extra, you need to do it this way:
remove the extra file
leave the pre play page of this library item, wait a few seconds and return to it. If this doesn’t trigger the removal of the extra, use the “Refresh Metadata” command.
change the file in whatever way you need (add subtitles, or audio tracks, or replace the video with better quality or more advanced compression…)
place the extra back
Repeat step 2)
Done this way, you don’t need to perform the full Plex dance on the main library item. Which will often bring it to the top of the Recently Added pile, which is usually unwanted.
