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+--- Thread: JF ignores "default" audio and subtitle settings (/t-jf-ignores-default-audio-and-subtitle-settings)
JF ignores "default" audio and subtitle settings - malebron - 2025-04-09
Hi - I think this is a question many of you anime lovers must have overcome before.
I want my Miyazaki movies to play by default (=no fiddling with settings) with Japanese audio and a specific English subtitle track (of two English options available). Other users of my server may prefer the dubbed versions (subs off by default, but available).
I'm using mkv files, by the way. PGS subs are internal. I also want the Japanese audio to accompany the video with the Japanese credits.
My solution is to create two versions and use MKVToolNix to set the required options to "default" for each case. The viewer then just needs to pick the version they want and all settings are taken care of.
This works perfectly when I view the files using VLC and Kodi - the two versions play exactly as expected with the correct audio and subs for each version.
Jellyfin however seems to ignore the "default" settings (and "forced" which I also tried) - although they are labeled as such in the drop-down menus - and defaults to the first audio track (English in this case) and subtitles "Off". You can manually change them of course, but that defeats the purpose of all this work.
I know many people watch anime in Japanese with English subs, which is a similar use-case. How did you set that up?
Thanks!
RE: JF ignores "default" audio and subtitle settings - TheDreadPirate - 2025-04-10
If this is jellyfin-web based client (WebOS, Tizen OS, Android, iOS, JMP), there is an option to ignore your language preference and play the default track. I am not sure what the default setting is.
I don't recall if our Android TV or Roku native clients have an equivalent setting. Not at home to check.
RE: JF ignores "default" audio and subtitle settings - malebron - 2025-04-11
Thanks TheDreadPirate. I hadn't thought to look into user settings, but that was the clue I needed.
The answer is in Profile under Playback/Advanced here:
[Sorry. I can't figure out how to paste in a screenshot]
"Set Audio track based on Previous Item" and "Set Subtitle track based on Previous Item" must be UNCHECKED.
If these are checked, the "default" settings for audio or subtitle track will be overridden to match the setting of the last thing you watched. So, if I play the English dubbed version first with subtitles off, and then start the Japanese version, the subtitles will be set to OFF, even though English subs are set as "default" for this version. Very confusing. Unchecking these boxes fixes that behavior.
There must be use case where this makes sense, but I can't think of one.
I just hope these settings work on a per-user basis (which I can access, as admin), not per client, which I can't control. I guess I'll find out.
(There's no way to change a setting globally for all users, is there?)
RE: JF ignores "default" audio and subtitle settings - TheDreadPirate - 2025-04-11
There are global, per-user, and per-device settings. I'm assuming that settings like language and preference are per-user. I don't have access to my other devices at the moment to test whether this setting is, in fact, per user and not per device.
All of the global settings are in the Dashboard. As you probably realized, since this setting is not in any of the dashboard preferences it is not something you can globally set.
IMO, this should be up to the user to decide what their preference is anyway.
RE: JF ignores "default" audio and subtitle settings - malebron - 2025-04-17
Thanks again,
"IMO, this should be up to the user to decide what their preference is anyway."
This sounds great in theory - as long as you have technically competent users like you or I. Unfortunately many of us have users (...my Mom!) who are not. Fortunately these users are also not likely to change the password from the one used to set up their accounts, so I can log-in as them and change it. Even a technical user (...me!) took ages to figure it out (with help - thank you!). Remember this is only about setting the default behavior - users can always decide their own preferences if they want.
For now it looks like I need to log into the account of any user who may encounter this issue and change their settings.
I don't know if there is such a thing, but it would be great to define a default user profile so I don't forget to do this any time I set up a new user. It might help other admins who need different defaults too.
RE: JF ignores "default" audio and subtitle settings - TheDreadPirate - 2025-04-18
Keep in mind that some settings are CLIENT specific and not user specific. I THINK the language/track preference will sync across clients, though.