SRT subtitles not displaying, other unknown subtitles are displaying

[davesurfer 18]

On 24/02/2026 at 07:25, ebr said:

My best guess is this:

The other video may have had an embedded track marked "forced" which would have made it impossible for you to select another one.

So you mean a track that I wouldn't have seen when I used MKVToolnix? I did use that utility to delete all the existing subtitle tracks and then redid the MKV file with only mine. I guess just something weird with the Roku Emby player, as all other players like the web or Android Emby app played my subtitles fine.

[Luke 42246]

Quote

I did use that utility to delete all the existing subtitle tracks and then redid the MKV file with only mine

Hi, and then what happened?

[davesurfer 18]

18 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, and then what happened?

Same thing, and it didn't show my new subtitles that I added.

[Luke 42246]

45 minutes ago, davesurfer said:

Same thing, and it didn't show my new subtitles that I added.

What exactly is the same thing?

[davesurfer 18]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

What exactly is the same thing?

It was showing a subtitles for hearing impaired or something, like sound effects "ELECTRICAL HUMMING" etc. and then not showing the foreign subtitles that I added in there. It was just saying "(SPEAKING YAUTJA)"

[ebr 16339]

14 hours ago, davesurfer said:

It was showing a subtitles for hearing impaired or something, like sound effects "ELECTRICAL HUMMING"

But you say "your" subtitle was the only one?  Are you positive they contain what you think they do?

[davesurfer 18]

2 hours ago, ebr said:

But you say "your" subtitle was the only one?  Are you positive they contain what you think they do?

 I'm not the expert when it comes to remuxing or whatever the term is, but when I opened that MKV in MKVToolNix I saw several subtitle tracks for other languages and I removed everything, then just added my foreign subtitle track in there and it repackaged the MKV. Like I said, the Emby mobile and web app displayed them without any issues. It was just the Roku Emby app that would refuse to play my subtitle track even though, as I screenshot it above, the Emby app could see it as a selectable subtitle track from the drop down selection, and when selected, it still didn't play them. It was probably just some baked in weirdness that was happening with that video file that was glitching the Roku Emby app playback for whatever reason.

[Lane03 14]

@ebrand @speechlesI too am having this issue all of a sudden, even on movies that played back properly before using internal and external SRT subs. I wonder if a recent Roku update broke something? I'm using a RokuTV running 15.1.4 build 3334.

What's even more interesting is if I force a full transcode on the emby Roku app via playback correction, subtitles still don't appear.

[ebr 16339]

8 hours ago, Lane03 said:

@ebrand @speechlesI too am having this issue all of a sudden, even on movies that played back properly before using internal and external SRT subs. I wonder if a recent Roku update broke something? I'm using a RokuTV running 15.1.4 build 3334.

What's even more interesting is if I force a full transcode on the emby Roku app via playback correction, subtitles still don't appear.

 

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!

 

[Starlionblue 82]

On 24/02/2026 at 23:25, ebr said:

My best guess is this:

The other video may have had an embedded track marked "forced" which would have made it impossible for you to select another one.

 

So if there is an embedded forced sub, Roku can never show subs for this file now?

[pwhodges 2035]

Roku behaves very badly if it sees a forced flag; I use a little script to remove them from MKV files in bulk.

Paul

Edited 10 hours ago by pwhodges

[visproduction 336]

PW,  please show us your script.

[Starlionblue 82]

17 minutes ago, visproduction said:

PW,  please show us your script.

+1

Even better if the functionality was embedded in Emby somehow, as an add-on or not.

[pwhodges 2035]

Here you are.  Only MKV files are processed, and they are modified in place without any rewriting.  It assumes that the MKVToolNix program files are on the path.  The base directory to be scanned can be provided as a command-line parameter or in response to a prompt, and subdirectories are also processed.  All forced flags on any type of stream are removed.

I run it automatically after re-encoding files with Handbrake (because Handbrake adds unwanted forced flags when you specify default), just on the program's target directory - Handbrake's preferences have a slot for specifying a command to be run automatically at the end.

Paul

unforce.cmd