Strange audio and subs selection behaviour and several versions of same item [WORKAROUND EXPLAINED]

[cubatilles 3]

Hi,

I'm experimenting 2 different problems, which according to documentation, should not happen.

First problem is related to audio and subtitles default selection. I have a TVSeries which has  several available audio tracks and subtitle tracks for different languages. When you are on the episode info screen you can select audio and subtitles tracks and on the down side you have Play and favourites buttons. For some episodes, Emby will automatically choose different languages, apparently randomly. The files are Matroska. I've reviewed the files one per one and even remuxed them with MKVToolnix, making sure to choose always the same audio language as Default (and the same for subtitles). I've tried even enabling the "forced" tag. Of course I've also made sure there are no other tracks with the forced tag. No matter what I try, Emby willo pick up difrferent audio and subtitle tracks for each episode.

I'm using Emby server 4.5.2.0 on a Synology NAS. The problems seem to affect different clients (HTML5 and AndroidTV clients with different users).

Is there a known bug which could cause this? I've also tried to change default audio and subtitle language on the AUDIO/SUBS section of the settings on my emby client (androidtv), and tried "default", "smart" and other modes on subtitle selection behaviour, though I usually have set it up to "default". No matter what, Emby will ignore this. After every try, I've also done a rescan on the library on server side and restarted app on client side. Other shows seem fine.

The other problem I've noticed just today, is related to naming conventions for several versions of single item (for example a Theatrical and Direcvtor's Cut version of a movie, or a Broadcast and BDrip version of a tvshow, or a single episode) and how Emby will handle it when displaying the "Version" selection box. I've read the official documentation at

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159102-movie-naming

and according to that documentation, Emby should always show any characters after the dash. But I have two versions of the movie "Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance (2009)", named like this:

Neon Genesis Evangelion S00xE05 - 2.0 Cine DUAL.mkv

Neon Genesis Evangelion S00xE05 - 2.22 Extended Edition.mkv

The version label will show "0 Cine DUAL" and "22 Extended Edition". So it will ignore EVERY character from the beginning until it finds different characters, which of course ruins the correct displaying of the version info. I've tried different comnbinations, like:

Neon Genesis Evangelion S00xE05 [2.0 Cine DUAL].mkv

Neon Genesis Evangelion S00xE05 [2.22 Extended Edition].mkv

No matter what, it will always end up with the same problem. Of course I can workaround this making the version number at the end insted of the beginning, but I would prefer to not having to do that. Is it a known bug, or am I missing something obvious here?

Sincerely,

Jordi Bosch

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by cubatilles
Just added the [WORKAROUND EXPLAINED] tag after pwhodges kindly shared a workaround for it

[pwhodges 2014]

I get what Emby is doing, but I agree it's not entirely intuitive.  I tend to put a serial number or letter as the start of the distinguishing text, e.g. "Evangelion 2 'Ha' - a) 2.0 cinema" and "Evangelion 2 'Ha' - b) 2.22 home release" which should give "a) 2.0 cinema" and "b) 2.22 home release".

My suggestion for an improvement would be to break at the white space or punctuation preceding the first differing character (which admittedly would only work for our example if the "." within a number was excluded from being seen as punctuation).

Paul

[Luke 42085]

Yes this is currently by design. It has worked well for the most part.

[cubatilles 3]

Thanks for the suggestions, @pwhodges. I guess I'll use the method you suggested.

Sincerely.