Subtitles not showing on Android for an mkv during playback

[UsamaWaheed 13]

Hey @sa2000

got the beta app installed. I will go to the old files and test it shortly but I saw another issue. For one of the Anime it wasn't showing subtitles. I reset the app (both data and cache). I rebooted Nvidia Shield TV as well. I thought maybe file has an issue and played it on plex and subtitles show as expected. Tried multiple times to no avail. Here are the logs from the server and the app.

 

embyserver (1).txt emby_android_1774663823627.txt emby_android_1774663131769.txt

[sa2000 697]

On 28/03/2026 at 03:18, UsamaWaheed said:

got the beta app installed. I will go to the old files and test it shortly but I saw another issue. For one of the Anime it wasn't showing subtitles. I reset the app (both data and cache). I rebooted Nvidia Shield TV as well. I thought maybe file has an issue and played it on plex and subtitles show as expected. Tried multiple times to no avail. Here are the logs from the server and the app.

Thanks for all the tests

Was this subttle issue for this episode file? 

Fate+strange Fake - s01e01 - The Heroic Spirit Incident - WEBDL-1080p-Kaleido-subs.mkv

would it be possible to get the file for me to try and refer to the development team? If it would be ok, I can send you an upload link

And is this a regression from the earlier version ?

 

[UsamaWaheed 13]

11 hours ago, sa2000 said:

Thanks for all the tests

Was this subttle issue for this episode file? 

Fate+strange Fake - s01e01 - The Heroic Spirit Incident - WEBDL-1080p-Kaleido-subs.mkv

would it be possible to get the file for me to try and refer to the development team? If it would be ok, I can send you an upload link

And is this a regression from the earlier version ?

 

Hey @sa2000for sure. Please send me the link and I can upload the file.

This is a new file so not sure if it's a regression but another file for which subtitles were working it didn't work on this. Planning on reverting to older version.

[sa2000 697]

2 hours ago, UsamaWaheed said:

Please send me the link and I can upload the file.

link sent

[UsamaWaheed 13]

File uploaded!
I remember it had multiple subtitles. none of them worked. The one i really need is the full subtitles and it doesn't work.

[sa2000 697]

On 31/03/2026 at 11:20, UsamaWaheed said:

I remember it had multiple subtitles. none of them worked. The one i really need is the full subtitles and it doesn't work.

My initial tests on a Samsung phone running Emby for Android 3.5.31 and Emby Server 4.10.0.8 shows the subtitles

Thus was the selected subtitle stream

 

and playback does show subtitles

 

I will next try on an Nvidia Shield

 

[UsamaWaheed 13]

Hey..I just tested on my mobile (Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold) with 3.5.28

 

Same scene no subtitles.

Can you check if it's direct play or transcoding. If I transcoder the subtitles immediately show up but direct play isn't showing it.

 

Also my server 4.9 - could that have anything to do with it?

[sa2000 697]

2 hours ago, UsamaWaheed said:

Can you check if it's direct play or transcoding. If I transcoder the subtitles immediately show up but direct play isn't showing it.

you are abolsutely right. 

I will refer the issue to the development team. 

 

Edited Wednesday at 12:15 PM by sa2000

[sa2000 697]

@UsamaWaheed Initial feedback: This is suspected to be due to the compression on the embedded ASS subtitle stream and the way Exoplayer is setup within the android app.

MediaInfo 

Text #1
ID                                       : 4
Format                                   : ASS
Muxing mode                              : zlib
Codec ID                                 : S_TEXT/ASS
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Duration                                 : 24 min 39 s
Bit rate                                 : 80.6 kb/s
Frame rate                               : 9.353 FPS
Count of elements                        : 13842
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 14.2 MiB (1%)
Title                                    : Full Subtitles [Kaleido-subs]
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

At this moment it is only possible to play an mkv like this with transcoding to uncompress the subtitle stream and show the text

I have opened an issue on this for Emby android app development team

 

Edited Thursday at 10:47 AM by sa2000