SRT subtitles not working, embedded in MKV works OK.

[salvadordalisdad 8]

Hi All,

Had reason to create my own subtitle file recently, in SRT format, very interesting task.

Found the formatting details, simple text file as it turns out, bit of timing info, bit of a doddle really - or so it seemed...

Tested it locally with VLC on a windows machine, worked a treat - eventually - after I re-did the timings etc.

 

Then proudly tried to show it off to my beloved on the main telly (sony/android using emby server) and it just didn't work, she's used to disappointment.

As is always the way when something doesn't work, I spent a good deal longer finding out what wasn't working than getting the SRT file to work in the 1st place.

So tested it on---

android phone emby app

Sony TV android emby app

Web front-end direct to server (port 8096)

Eventually got hold of a massive sledgehammer & edited the video file to embed the subtitles inside the MKV and re-render it, took a while.

That worked fine - all clients.

Since then I tried the "Search for subtitles" method from the client - that worked, ish. It downloaded the correct language subtitles in a SRT file & gave them the right name & stored them in teh right place...

Unfortunately, as it's an SRT file, they didn't show up. Quite ironic really.

Pretty sure I got SRT subtitles last year (?) for a french drama I was watching, don't remember a problem then...

Anyway, Q1 - is this supposed to be happening, are SRT files no longer supported (wouldn't have thopught so) or has it broken recently?

Q2 - How can I get it to work again please - I have a bunch more I'd like to do, and I really can't be doing with editing MKV files & re-rendering them, quite the faff.

 

 

I have seen other discussions but searching before posting I couldn't find anything current.

TIA

(Server is docker on unraid)

[GrimReaper 4154]

23 minutes ago, salvadordalisdad said:

Q1 - is this supposed to be happening, are SRT files no longer supported (wouldn't have thopught so) or has it broken recently?

Nope, support has not been removed nor is it broken (I have 100,000+ srt subs in my system and have to admit I've yet to encounter one of them failing to show).

Exact example would be required, how are your files named and organized? How did you name your subtitle files?

 

How to Report a Problem

 

23 minutes ago, salvadordalisdad said:

Q2 - How can I get it to work again please - I have a bunch more I'd like to do, and I really can't be doing with editing MKV files & re-rendering them, quite the faff.

Q1 should cover that one once the issue is traced.

Edited January 17 by GrimReaper

[Lessaj 300]

Have you tried opening your SRT with SubtitleEdit? It may reveal some issues with it perhaps.

[salvadordalisdad 8]

2 hours ago, Lessaj said:

Have you tried opening your SRT with SubtitleEdit? It may reveal some issues with it perhaps.

Thanks - always keen to learn new tools.

Yes I've looked at a chosen SRT file & it looks fine, no errors when loaded with currrent release of subtitleedit 4.0.10

Thanks for the nudge though.

[salvadordalisdad 8]

2 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

Nope, support has not been removed nor is it broken (I have 100,000+ srt subs in my system and have to admit I've yet to encounter one of them failing to show).

Exact example would be required, how are your files named and organized? How did you name your subtitle files?

 

How to Report a Problem

 

Q1 should cover that one once the issue is traced.

Hiya

Thanks for the help, much appreciated, glad to hear it works, that's a relief.

So it's just me doing something wrong, OK I can fix that !

Not sure if the "quote" button has worked, not showing up well in my browser- Apologies if it's not the right half of the comment.

File names are as I have interpreted from the rules I read on Emby filenaming guidelines:

Video file - Prescot for 6.mkv

SRT file in same dir - Prescot for 6.srt

also - Prescot for 6.eng.default.srt

These work when the MKV file is played in VLC on a windiws machine. Emby Server is on Linux, but doesn't seem to mind spaces for any other media.

 

I will have a go at the emby server log & see if I can upload that.

 

[Lessaj 300]

Does the SRT show up in the media info section? Can you attach it to a post so we can try it?

[salvadordalisdad 8]

4 hours ago, salvadordalisdad said:

Hiya

Thanks for the help, much appreciated, glad to hear it works, that's a relief.

So it's just me doing something wrong, OK I can fix that !

Not sure if the "quote" button has worked, not showing up well in my browser- Apologies if it's not the right half of the comment.

File names are as I have interpreted from the rules I read on Emby filenaming guidelines:

Video file - Prescot for 6.mkv

SRT file in same dir - Prescot for 6.srt

also - Prescot for 6.eng.default.srt

These work when the MKV file is played in VLC on a windiws machine. Emby Server is on Linux, but doesn't seem to mind spaces for any other media.

 

I will have a go at the emby server log & see if I can upload that.

 

Hiya

 

Just tested prescot for 6 again (put back the old version + the subtitle files & re-scanned the media).

Still not showing, but the logs show interesting messages - attached.

"System.UnauthorizedAccessException: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path '/config/cache/subtitles/4' is denied."

Could be a red herring, but it looks suspicious to me - welcome any comments on how to fix it.

Have opened a console & looked - there is no folder /config/cache/subtitles/4

There's a folder /config/cache/subtitles/5  but not a 4

5 just contains a single file  "5ea4765f239fce94151c22aff2989322_638625955480733797_2_0_0_False.srt"

Not sure where to go from here.

Suggestions welcome - especially if I'm barking up the wrong diagnostic tree!

 

Thanks in advance, much appreciated.

subtitl;es-emby-error.txt

[salvadordalisdad 8]

4 hours ago, Lessaj said:

Does the SRT show up in the media info section? Can you attach it to a post so we can try it?

Yer tiz

It's a northwest dance notation (you didn't ask, I know!)

I'm 99% confident it'll work on anyone else's system.

 

I just ran up a new emby server to etst (yes, but trying to put in a little effort myself!) & it worked. Log entry: - so that's proved it's not generally broken. No mention of this cache directory though.

2025-01-18 03:14:04.718 Info SubtitleEncoder: ffmpeg subtitle conversion took 56ms for /mnt/GrownUpsFilms/Basingclog Videos/Prescot for 6.eng.default.srt

 

Prescot for 6.srt

[Lessaj 300]

Indeed, works fine. I'm not really sure why that folder wouldn't exist or would have its permissions adjusted but looking at my subtitles cache folder I have folders 0-9 and a-f so you could just create whatever is missing and set the permissions to the same as any other folder, not sure what it is in what I assume is a docker container.

[salvadordalisdad 8]

Update

Created sub folders 1-6 in the cponfig/cache/subtitles 

chmod to 99:users - same as existing 5 folder

restarted

rescan library files

getting different errors now, sometimes folder is "2" other times "4" but same sort of error.

Atached error message from log.

Always open to suggestions, but I'm getting a "reinstall from scratch" vibe here...

TIA

subtitl;es-emby-error-2.txt

[salvadordalisdad 8]

Tried re-installing, but it's unraid/docker so the "remove docker" didn't remove the appdata directory, so when I re-insatlleld the docker, it was all still there, broken.

I guess I will have to remove the appdata folder to make it start from scratch so I can restore from backup etc...

[Luke 40096]

@salvadordalisdaddid you end up doing this? What happened?

[salvadordalisdad 8]

Hi Sorry for the delay, been working up the courage to do a flatten & restore.

Meanwhile my backup server failed, so it's been a big job to recover it, very time consuming.

But it gave me a blank canvass to install a completely fresh emby & restore a full backup of primary emby-server to confirm it works OK.

Good news = it fixed the subtitles issue, so that's clearly something in my primary emby-server which is broken. Yay!

Bad news = the backup/restore isn't working properly! Fresh backup  (twice) this morning (once took 50 seconds, then 6 mins) rsync'd and restored onto fresh-emby wasn't up-to-date. But consistent across both backups/restores.

I'm very confused because the dashboard (for the users I logged in as) is way out of date - it's not the current layout or program statuseses.

It looks like it is from some weeks ago, based on the "next episode" list, and the user list for logging in is huge, when the original isn't.

Any suggestions? What am I doing wrong?

 

Edited February 21 by salvadordalisdad
clarification

[salvadordalisdad 8]

Just tested again, this time with a "normal" scheduled backup at 3am.

Still not accurate.

Am I to assume that my instance is "a bit broken" and therefore I just have to bite the bullet & put up with a hopelessly out-of-date restored database ?

I actually wonder if there's any point in restoring the database if it's going to be 2 months out of date...maybe I delete the user & start again?

 

[visproduction 283]

Sal,

Are you using "99:users" as a user name?  I think colon is not allowed.

see: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap03.html#tag_03_282

Quote

3.282 Portable Filename Character Set

The set of characters from which portable filenames are constructed.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 . _ -

 

[salvadordalisdad 8]

1 hour ago, visproduction said:

Sal,

Are you using "99:users" as a user name?  I think colon is not allowed.

see: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap03.html#tag_03_282

 

hiya,

 

lol, no that's the unix username/group-id for the underlying file system. Nice thought though, good to know, thanks.

OK strictly speaking that wasn't a lol, more of a silent smile once I realised what you meant...but there isn't a shorthand for that!

[salvadordalisdad 8]

3 hours ago, salvadordalisdad said:

Just tested again, this time with a "normal" scheduled backup at 3am.

Still not accurate.

Am I to assume that my instance is "a bit broken" and therefore I just have to bite the bullet & put up with a hopelessly out-of-date restored database ?

I actually wonder if there's any point in restoring the database if it's going to be 2 months out of date...maybe I delete the user & start again?

 

Another test - created new user on broken emby server, did a backup, transferred it to new server, restore (or extract data from restore) did not find the new user - no sign at all, like they didn't exist - so yes I think the backup is broken, shame because that's what backups were meant to avoid.

Disappointing, but it's a database & that happens, just wish there was a way to remember what shows have been watched, oh well. Need to explain to everyone that their "watched" status for stuff is going to disappear. Worse things happen at sea I guess.

May as well marked this "closed lost"

;-/

Edited February 24 by salvadordalisdad

[Neminem 889]

If you are starting over with unRaid docker, try setting your docker file permissions like this.

That way Emby runs as nobody.

I think, by default the docker runs as UID 2 GID 2 GIDLIST 2

Edited February 24 by Neminem

[salvadordalisdad 8]

19 minutes ago, Neminem said:

If you are starting over with unRaid docker, try setting your docker file permissions like this.

That way Emby runs as nobody.

I think, by default the docker runs as UID 2 GID 2 GIDLIST 2

Thanks, will do. 

[Luke 40096]

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

[visproduction 283]

How 'nobody' user and group works, seemed always odd to me.  I would think if a request for .srt file fails to find the file due to Linux ownership rights, then there would be an error in the log.  My answer was just to avoid these setup issues and just reinstall everything.  Ha...

I did find this interesting page.  Maybe it is useful.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/186568/what-is-nobody-user-and-group

[Neminem 889]

2 hours ago, visproduction said:

How 'nobody' user and group works

Since unRaid's primary user is root, but nobody is your default permissions for files / folders, it's easier to use nobody as a user in your dockers.

Then the docker has access to your files / folders you assign to that docker.

And does not require you to edit permissions for Emby to access files, uploaded or created by other dockers.

Emby docker by default runs with 2 - 2 - 2, don't remember what user that is.

But anyways nice history lessen

Edited February 25 by Neminem

[salvadordalisdad 8]

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks very much for the support.

Finally bit the bullet & scratched the whole thing & started again.

1st test = subtitles from file - that worked.

2nd test = find, download & use subtitles = perfect.

So resolved. Also set the right user/group Id  and reset the backups, so a bit of a spring clean really.

Happy days.

Thanks all.