Subtitles display delay?

[fabien_m2002 14]

Hello

why subs start to display after some minutes of playing? Once subs are displayed, i can rewind back the movie to see the subs.

I run with 1.0.50 and last beta.

Also subs disapeared before the movie ends: 

 

 

[Luke 42579]

 

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

 

[Moreje 17]

OK,

once the media have been played once with subtitles, if you start it again, there is no delay

it only occurs for first play.

here is my latest log file ... the subtitles took about 1.5 min to show up for the last media played... (the 2 before show up immediately, but they have already been played on the same client yesterday)

 

embyserver_10062026.txt

Edited June 10 by Moreje
LOG EDIT

[Luke 42579]

5 hours ago, Moreje said:

OK,

once the media have been played once with subtitles, if you start it again, there is no delay

it only occurs for first play.

here is my latest log file ... the subtitles took about 1.5 min to show up for the last media played... (the 2 before show up immediately, but they have already been played on the same client yesterday)

 

embyserver_10062026.txt 3.11 MB · 0 downloads

Hi, what playback example are we focusing on here?

[Moreje 17]

the latest of the log file...Euphoria.(US).(2019).S03E07..

it shows that subtitles extraction took 2 min!

Edited June 10 by Moreje

[Luke 42579]

24 minutes ago, Moreje said:

the latest of the log file...Euphoria.(US).(2019).S03E07..

it shows that subtitles extraction took 2 min!

This could be normal depending on the performance of your server as well as the disk I/O of what the media is stored on. Extracting the subtitles has to step through the entire video file.

The next update to Emby for LG is using a newer progressive technique that won't have to wait the full 2 minutes to start displaying subtitles. If your LG TV is on the newer side then it should be able to use it.

[Moreje 17]

Oh, my server is the same since few years and has, I suppose enough capabilities... 

But... I recently moved the storage from RAID5 to mergerfs... But I was not aware that would impair i/o... 

BTW.. I hope that the next LG emby client will help (my TV is oledB2 series...) 

[Luke 42579]

b2, so 2022?

[fabien_m2002 14]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

This could be normal depending on the performance of your server as well as the disk I/O of what the media is stored on. Extracting the subtitles has to step through the entire video file.

The next update to Emby for LG is using a newer progressive technique that won't have to wait the full 2 minutes to start displaying subtitles. If your LG TV is on the newer side then it should be able to use it.

Hello Luke

Is there a link to these transcoding settings?

 

[Luke 42579]

yea try checking the first one.

[Moreje 17]

Hi Luke,

my mistake, it is a OLEDB1  , so 2021 model  will it be concerned by emby client update?

I've tested HDD perfs, and it confirms your suggestion:

 

time dd if=/srv/dev-disk-by-uuid-4f5ea1ff-5063-479f-afcf-0f6084755e4b/medias/SERIES_TV/Euphoria\ \(US
\)/S3/Euphoria.\(US\).\(2019\).S03E07.Rain.or.Shine.WEBDL-2160p.mkv of=/dev/null bs=4M
2154+1 records in
2154+1 records out
9037355825 bytes (9.0 GB, 8.4 GiB) copied, 101.319 s, 89.2 MB/s

real    1m41.321s
user    0m0.012s
sys     0m4.234s

 

1m40 to read the whole file...it's the time needed to the subtitles to show up...

Is there a solution to have these subtitles extracted in backgroud task? on my setup, the option "extraction on the fly" is enabled

[fabien_m2002 14]

9 hours ago, Luke said:

yea try checking the first one.

In fact when i post this bug, both settings was enabled.

[Luke 42579]

6 hours ago, fabien_m2002 said:

In fact when i post this bug, both settings was enabled.

 

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

 

[fabien_m2002 14]

On 6/11/2026 at 4:30 PM, Luke said:

 

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

 

Hello @Luke

The subs start to appear after 2-3 minutes, it's very long:
2026-06-15 11:28:14.090 Info SubtitleEncoder: Subtitle extraction took 116,544ms

Here the logs.

 

embyserver.txt

[Luke 42579]

If your system can't do this quickly enough then you may want to disable on the fly subtitle extraction in server transcoding settings.

Just know that if you do that, you will see more video transcoding and less direct play.

[fabien_m2002 14]

3 hours ago, Luke said:

If your system can't do this quickly enough then you may want to disable on the fly subtitle extraction in server transcoding settings.

Just know that if you do that, you will see more video transcoding and less direct play.

You mean theses settings? I have already enabled/disabled them but same result.

Edited yesterday at 08:54 AM by fabien_m2002

[Luke 42579]

13 hours ago, fabien_m2002 said:

You mean theses settings? I have already enabled/disabled them but same result.

Now that you've disabled them, let's look at a new log example. thanks.

[fabien_m2002 14]

Hello @Luke

I tested one VOD with disabling extraction on the fly settings.
Same behavior: subtitles (not forced) start to appear after 4 mns.

I noticed something strange: on my others clients (PC, Smartphone): forced subs not appeared but not forced subs appear immediatly

Here the logs

embyserver.txt

[Moreje 17]

On 6/16/2026 at 6:57 AM, Luke said:

If your system can't do this quickly enough then you may want to disable on the fly subtitle extraction in server transcoding settings.

Just know that if you do that, you will see more video transcoding and less direct play.

Is it the reason why in my tests from my laptop (web app), the subtitles display immediately? because with chrome, it always transcode? 

I've never noticed such delays with my NAS I use since more than 5 years.... but is is hard to define if it is a sudden fall of my NAS perfs...or if it is related to my LG emby client....

[Luke 42579]

13 hours ago, fabien_m2002 said:

Hello @Luke

I tested one VOD with disabling extraction on the fly settings.
Same behavior: subtitles (not forced) start to appear after 4 mns.

I noticed something strange: on my others clients (PC, Smartphone): forced subs not appeared but not forced subs appear immediatly

Here the logs

embyserver.txt 101.47 kB · 0 downloads

OK this should be improved with the next Emby LG app update. Thanks.