I have subtitles in the same folder as some of my media files and some work fine, but others won’t. They are selectable from the subtitles screen during playback and from the pay back settings screen before playback. However even if they are selected they do not play. If I play the movie from the folder in VLC Player they work just fine, just not in Plex. I have verified the permissions on the file match the permissions on the media file, so Plex should be able to read the files just fine.
Any help on figuring this out would be appreciated. Thanks!
They are text subtitles, SRT/SSA/ASS, correct? Plex does not support external image based subtitles such as PGS or VOBSUB.
There is an external subtitle fix in the 9.1 client beta (see first announcement below). Unknown when 9.1 will go from beta to mainstream. You can subscribe to the mainstream release announcement (2nd thread below) to receive notifications of updates (scroll to bottom of thread, change Normal to Watching).
If desired, you can sideload the beta release. Use the Amazon Fire OS Devices version. Sideloaded apps do not update via the Amazon store. To return to mainstream releases, delete the sideloaded version and install the Amazon store version.
I am asking as I have been using VOBSUB subtitles for years for my DVD library and it works fine on most clients, but not on the Android TV client on my NVidia Shield (2019). Well, it works a little even on the Shield as it renders the subtitle images correctly when they are forced to be shown somewhere else than the default location at the bottom center which happens sometimes when credits or other text content are located in the bottom area.
Other formats such as VOBSUB, PGS, etc. may work on some Plex apps but not all. For the majority of apps, both VOBSUB and PGS subtitles will require the video to be transcoded to “burn in” the subtitles for streaming.
