Subtitle settings and forced subtitles

[Dickydodah! 156]

My normal App setting for subtitles is;

preferred subtile language = English

subtitle mode = only forced

This works well most of the time but I have found a few videos that have English soundtracks but foreign forced subtitles. I expected the above settings to work correctly and only show English forced subtitles but I see foreign forced subtitles automatically selected. I'm not sure if this is a bug or if I'm misunderstanding the logic of the two selectable options.

[Luke 42528]

HI there, can you please provide a specific example?

How to Report a Problem

Thanks !

 

[Dickydodah! 156]

@LukeI will get all the info I can and report it. I assume that it's not the expected behaviour

[Dickydodah! 156]

I've done a bit of testing and have added a few files to show what I see.

I'm using the web app to play this file. Currently I haven't tried a different app as the server is remote from me at the moment.

I've got at least one file with forced foreign subs that are automatically selected. This is an MKV with embeded subs not SRT files. The App setting is for English and only forced however when played the forced polish subs are selected. If I turn the subs off and play a bit the setting is remembered as expected and doesn't show as selected the next time I go to play the file. If I clear saved track selections the foreign sub is again selected.

Mediainfo.txt embyserver.txt

[Luke 42528]

On 5/15/2026 at 5:59 AM, Dickydodah! said:

I've done a bit of testing and have added a few files to show what I see.

I'm using the web app to play this file. Currently I haven't tried a different app as the server is remote from me at the moment.

I've got at least one file with forced foreign subs that are automatically selected. This is an MKV with embeded subs not SRT files. The App setting is for English and only forced however when played the forced polish subs are selected. If I turn the subs off and play a bit the setting is remembered as expected and doesn't show as selected the next time I go to play the file. If I clear saved track selections the foreign sub is again selected.

Mediainfo.txt 6.42 kB · 1 download embyserver.txt 68.06 kB · 1 download

Hi, what did you want to be selected?

[Dickydodah! 156]

I would expect nothing to be selected in this case as there are no forced subs in English in this particular file. The setting works as expected when there are English forced subs of course.

I thought that the two options were connected in that if I prefered English and only forced subtitles then only English forced subs would be selected. It seems that the preferred language selection is truly only a preference and not mandatory if there are forced subs.

To put it another way I only want to play English subs (if available) only when the actor is actually speaking a foreign language, This of course requires Forced English Subs.

 

[Dickydodah! 156]

Further to my reply I think that this may not realy be an Emby issue. The file has an English soundtrack with no foreign language spoken so the Polish sub track shouldn't really be forced as a forced Polish sub track is only needed if the native language is Polish and a foreign language is spoken at some point in the file.

However it did highlight that the (possibly) infered logic of the subtitle settings is not quite what actually happens.