SRT subtitles fail processing

[bobus67 0]

After months of smooth operation, suddenly subtitles I download fail to show on my LG TV. I can't see any difference between older (two days old) subtitles that still play and new subtitles that don't. Also, all subtitles are recognized and played by GOM player on my PC.

Emby server v4.4.3.0

The logs show this:

2020-07-10 22:43:51.148 Info HttpServer: HTTP GET http://192.168.1.12:8096/emby/Videos/10775/f96f3c61fd27807c926652d5f8eed8b9/Subtitles/2/0/Stream.vtt. Host=192.168.1.12:8096, Connection=keep-alive, Origin=file://com.emby.app, User-Agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Web0S; Linux/SmartTV) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/53.0.2785.34 Safari/537.36 WebAppManager, Accept=*/*, Accept-Encoding=gzip, deflate
2020-07-10 22:43:51.167 Info SubtitleEncoder: ProcessRun 'ffmpeg-subtitle_convert' Execute: C:\Users\beboula\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system\ffmpeg.exe  -sub_charenc utf-8 -i file:"D:\DOWNLOADS\TV\show S01\mysubs.srt" "C:\Users\beboula\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\cache\subtitles\7\789f464c7f7b07242534bf052cc1d168_637300069963967131_2_0_0_False.vtt"
2020-07-10 22:43:51.573 Info SubtitleEncoder: ProcessRun 'ffmpeg-subtitle_convert' Process exited with code 1
2020-07-10 22:43:51.575 Error SubtitleEncoder: ffmpeg subtitle conversion failed for D:\DOWNLOADS\TV\show S01\mysubs.srt
2020-07-10 22:43:51.575 Error SubtitleEncoder: ProcessRun 'ffmpeg-subtitle_convert' Output:
    
2020-07-10 22:43:51.575 Error SubtitleEncoder: ProcessRun 'ffmpeg-subtitle_convert' Error Output:
    ffmpeg version 4.3.0-emby_2020_05_23-g8f222573e9+530 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers and softworkz for Emby LLC
      built with gcc 9.2.0 (Rev2, Built by MSYS2 project)
    Execution Date: 2020-07-10 22:43:51
    file:D:\DOWNLOADS\TV\show S01\mysubs.srt: Invalid data found when processing input
    
2020-07-10 22:43:51.577 Error HttpServer: Error processing request
    *** Error Report ***
    Version: 4.4.3.0
    Command line: C:\Users\beboula\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system\EmbyServer.dll -noautorunwebapp
    Operating system: Microsoft Windows NT 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1
    64-Bit OS: True
    64-Bit Process: True
    User Interactive: True
    Runtime: file:///C:/Users/beboula/AppData/Roaming/Emby-Server/system/System.Private.CoreLib.dll
    System.Environment.Version: 3.1.4
    Processor count: 2
    Program data path: C:\Users\beboula\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata
    Application directory: C:\Users\beboula\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\system
    System.Exception: System.Exception: ffmpeg subtitle conversion failed for D:\DOWNLOADS\TV\show S01\mysubs.srt
       at Emby.Server.MediaEncoding.Subtitles.SubtitleEncoder.ConvertExternalSubtitleInternal(ReadOnlyMemory`1 inputPath, ReadOnlyMemory`1 language, MediaProtocol inputProtocol, IDictionary`2 requestHeaders, String outputPath, Int64 startTimeTicks, Int64 endTimeTicks, Boolean preserveOriginalTimestamps, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
       at Emby.Server.MediaEncoding.Subtitles.SubtitleEncoder.ConvertExternalSubtitle(ReadOnlyMemory`1 inputPath, ReadOnlyMemory`1 language, MediaProtocol inputProtocol, IDictionary`2 requestHeaders, String outputPath, Int64 startTimeTicks, Int64 endTimeTicks, Boolean preserveOriginalTimestamps, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
       at Emby.Server.MediaEncoding.Subtitles.SubtitleEncoder.GetReadableFile(String mediaPath, MediaProtocol mediaSourceProtocol, IDictionary`2 requestHeaders, MediaStream subtitleStream, ReadOnlyMemory`1 outputFormat, Int64 startTimeTicks, Int64 endTimeTicks, Boolean preserveOriginalTimestamps, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
       at Emby.Server.MediaEncoding.Subtitles.SubtitleEncoder.GetSubtitles(String inputPath, MediaProtocol inputProtocol, IDictionary`2 requestHeaders, MediaStream subtitleStream, ReadOnlyMemory`1 outputFormat, Int64 startTimeTicks, Int64 endTimeTicks, Boolean preserveOriginalTimestamps, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
       at MediaBrowser.Api.Subtitles.SubtitleService.GetSubtitles(GetSubtitle request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
       at MediaBrowser.Api.Subtitles.SubtitleService.Get(GetSubtitle request)
       at Emby.Server.Implementations.Services.ServiceController.GetTaskResult(Task task)
       at Emby.Server.Implementations.Services.ServiceHandler.ProcessRequestAsync(HttpListenerHost appHost, IRequest httpReq, IResponse httpRes, RestPath restPath, String responseContentType, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
       at Emby.Server.Implementations.HttpServer.HttpListenerHost.RequestHandler(IRequest httpReq, ReadOnlyMemory`1 urlString, ReadOnlyMemory`1 localPath, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    Source: Emby.Server.MediaEncoding
    TargetSite: Void MoveNext()

 

 

[bobus67 0]

It appears the problem was that the subtitle file was encoded as UTF-8 BOM rather than plain UTF-8.

Converting it to plain UTF-8 with Notepad++ seems to have done the trick.

The puzzling thing is that another episode has UTF-8 BOM, and the subtitle shows fine!

 

 

[Luke 37058]

Hi, do you still have the original srt available?

[bobus67 0]

No, I re-encoded it to plain UTF-8 and saved it without saving the original.

What I'd encourage you to do (on the assumption that you are part of the Emby team) is make the logging a bit more detailed, so that it would be clearer that it was the encoding of the file that was the problem.

One more subtitle-related thing. I download a sub, I put it in the right folder, with the right name. I then open the Emby client, navigate to the folder, select the video file, and it doesn't see the sub. I have to exit, reopen it, and only then it sees the sub. The second time. This happens all the time.

Edited July 11, 2020 by bobus67

[Luke 37058]

Quote

make the logging a bit more detailed, so that it would be clearer that it was the encoding of the file that was the problem.

Well yes I agree but the error message we get from ffmpeg doesn't allow us to easily determine that. Thanks for the feedback.

[bobus67 0]

ΟΚ, in that case there's not much you can do.

What about the other subtitle issue that I mentioned above?

[Luke 37058]

Quote

One more subtitle-related thing. I download a sub, I put it in the right folder, with the right name. I then open the Emby client, navigate to the folder, select the video file, and it doesn't see the sub. I have to exit, reopen it, and only then it sees the sub. The second time. This happens all the time.

It takes time. You either need to run a library scan, or wait for the Emby real-time monitor to pick it up, if you've enabled it for your library and if it's supported in your environment.