Incorrect characters in subtitles

[tmysik 9]

Noticed that in Android app (Emby plugin for Kodi works OK).

Some characters of the subtitles are incorrect, see the attached images.

Expected:

Actual:

 

Subtitles file (UTF-8, Linux line endings, no language in the file name):

Top.Gear.S30E01.720p.HDTV.2CH.x265.HEVC-PSA.srt

Server logs:

embyserver.txt

hardware_detection-63762911635.txt

 

Please, let me know if anything more is needed. Thank you.

 

[Luke 40079]

hi @tmysik we're looking into this. Thanks for reporting.

[tmysik 9]

@Luke Thanks a lot!

[tmysik 9]

Any chance for any progress here, please?

[Luke 40079]

We're still looking into it. Apologies for the delay.

[tmysik 9]

@Luke no problem at all. thanks for letting me know

[tlkounev 8]

Just wanted to report same problem. It seems there is problem with sub font in android app which doesnt correctly display č, ž, š(czech letters with hook). But othres "hooked" letters ě, ň, ď, ť, ř are correct.

 

[Peppe 4]

Hi, i do have the exact same issue with apple 4k tv and apple iphone 11 both with ios 15. Should i open a new topic under apple tv or ios? Or will this be solved globally for each device? Screenshot from my iphone emby with Czech subtitles…probably Slovak language (subtitles) will have same issue. Thanks

[Luke 40079]

We are looking into it. Thanks for reporting.

[tlkounev 8]

Guys. Do you see how old is this problem and nothing changed? This is rly anoying... 

[Luke 40079]

Apologies for the delay. We're still looking into it.

[VTucek 0]

Just got hit by this bug when watching in Firefox. I think the issue is either the font or the renderer of the font. A font can contain accented characters (say í or ý) and everything works fine. But when the renderer encounters a character that is not contained in the font,  such as ž, then it can use "v" and "z" to create the desired symbol. This clearly does not work here. To make matters even more complicated, in unicode you can represent ž either as one special character or as character "z" followed by accent "v".

To debug this I suggest to go trough the following steps:

1. Try using font that has all unicode characters of all European languages.
2. Try upgrading the library that is in charge of displaying fonts.
3. Convert  subtitles into unicode files with one unicode character per displayed character.

Edited January 8, 2022 by VTucek

[tmysik 9]

After the latest update, this problem is still valid.

 

[Peppe 4]

Dont worry, they are still looking into it 

[tlkounev 8]

They can tell us true. Just shut up and pay!

[DeLeTeCZ 0]

Any update?

[mprasil 14]

This is still not working in the latest version. If this is font issue, is there a way to provide custom font?

[Luke 40079]

7 minutes ago, mprasil said:

This is still not working in the latest version. If this is font issue, is there a way to provide custom font?

HI, we'll take another look at it. Thanks.

[Houfino 36]

I have the same problem..The admin doesn't want to solve it and they censored me...We have been waiting for a year and a half....I had to return the old versions

I had to reinstall emby version EMBY 3.1.73(android)...It works!!!!

Link
PROBLEM SUBTITLE

@Luke why are you doing????? Why don't you want to solve it?

[MiChAeLoKGB 7]

I personally do not have EMBY Premium anymore and am using EMBY only to track my watched media...

[GrimReaper 4141]

3 minutes ago, Houfino said:

and they censored me

Who censored you? Where? I've gone through the entire thread you linked to and haven't noticed any action taken on any of your content by an Admin or a Mod? 

[Houfino 36]

Dne 18.7.2022 v 19:35 GrimReaper řekl:

Kdo tě cenzuroval? Kde? Prošel jsem celé vlákno, na které jste odkazoval, a nevšiml jsem si žádné akce, kterou s vaším obsahem provedl administrátor nebo mod? 

I wrote you a private message..I don't want to write here publicly..

[Marcus1305 19]

The problem is still there. I don't understand why is it hard to fix it, since everything was fine until version 3.1.73 and that's why I'm forced to stay on it and not update the app. I think you should add an option to change the subtitle font or revert to the old one, as this could be a potential cause of the problem.

Edited August 9, 2022 by Marcus1305

[Houfino 36]

2 hours ago, Marcus1305 said:

The problem is still there. I don't understand why is it hard to fix it, since everything was fine until version 3.1.73 and that's why I'm forced to stay on it and not update the app. I think you should add an option to change the subtitle font or revert to the old one, as this could be a potential cause of the problem.

I agree! The admin doesn't want to solve it... We waited a year and a half.... The admin keeps making excuses that he will solve it and nothing....i also remain version emby 3.1.73....It's not hard to fix..They don't want to deal with it..why do we pay emby when subtitles don't work..

[mprasil 14]

So I did an experiment and recompiled  the latest Emby apk file replacing the assets/subfont.ttf file with same file from older Emby apk that didn't have this issue. After using the recompiled version, I can confirm the subtitles render correctly using latest Emby for Android 3.2.62:

This obviously does not fully solve my problem as I can't use the same approach on devices that do not support sideloading. But I think this pretty much confirms that the issue is within the used font. The working font is Roboto, the new (broken) font seems to be Noto Sans.

You can actually test the font pretty easily here, just type in some test text and drag the font you want to test. Here is how the old font renders my test string at 36px (note there is some slight kerning issue around the ť character, but otherwise it seems OK):

The font in the latest version renders the same text very incorrectly:

Here's the test text, I've used for testing, just copy/paste it into the tool: Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl ďábelské ódy

I understand that reverting the font might not be super easy as it might break international characters in other languages, however this should be considered the same as broken playback on all devices within regions using this characters sets. (Czech, Slovak, possibly others) This renders Emby almost unusable for those languages. (Which is made even worse by the fact, that using subtitles is much more common as a lot of content isn't dubbed in local language)

Hope this info helps to fix this ASAP.