FireTV Stick Fails Playback when Transcoding Video if Subtitles are Enabled

[TheDreadPirate]

The SRT subs appear to have time code errors. So that would explain why they were desync'd. I just noticed the same SRT timing errors from your previous logs.

What I'm thinking is that the VPN is dropping packets. And one of the things it may be dropping is the websocket close request. When the server goes to communicate over the websocket it finds that it is unexpectedly closed.

[boimouse]

The SRT subs appear to have time code errors.  So that would explain why they were desync'd.  I just noticed the same SRT timing errors from your previous logs.

What I'm thinking is that the VPN is dropping packets.  And one of the things it may be dropping is the websocket close request.  When the server goes to communicate over the websocket it finds that it is unexpectedly closed.

That doesn’t explain why everything works perfectly if I’m not transcoding (including perfectly synced subtitles). VPN or not, it simply fails to transcode if subtitles are enabled.

[TheDreadPirate]

A couple things. When direct playing, the file is directly sent to the client, including the embedded SRT subs. I'm assuming they are embedded, correct me if I'm wrong. When transcoding the subs are sent as a separate stream, and it appears that the subtitle parser is the component complaining.

Does this issue happen with every video or just this movie? If these are external subs, did they come with the movie or did you get them from OpenSubtitles?

[boimouse]

A couple things.  When direct playing, the file is directly sent to the client, including the embedded SRT subs.  I'm assuming they are embedded, correct me if I'm wrong.  When transcoding the subs are sent as a separate stream, and it appears that the subtitle parser is the component complaining.

Does this issue happen with every video or just this movie?  If these are external subs, did they come with the movie or did you get them from OpenSubtitles?

The subtitles are embedded (also came with the video) and yes it happens with every movie or tv show.

[TheDreadPirate]

Check our github for an existing issue similar to yours. If one doesn't exist, submit a ticket.

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv/issues

[boimouse]

Check our github for an existing issue similar to yours.  If one doesn't exist, submit a ticket.

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv/issues

Okay so I submitted a ticket on github but I also did some more digging and troubleshooting with some of your ideas. I am now confident that it has to do with the subtitle parser. I say that because I attempted to play a video that had no subtitles embedded in it but the subs were in the same directory so that Jellyfin could still use them. That played just fine with subtitles while transcoding. Though, the second I re-embedded those subs, the playback failed.

I have all my media in .m4v files as well in order to ensure compatibility through all my devices but I never tested this with other file formats to see if that was another problem.

[TheDreadPirate]

For testing, can you use a MKV container instead of M4V?

[theguymadmax]

Try this: On the homepage of the WebUI, click your profile avatar in the top-right corner. Select "Playback," then uncheck "Prefer fMP4-HLS Media Container" and save your changes. If I have this option enabled, subtitles won't work when I try to play content on the Android TV client.

[boimouse]

For testing, can you use a MKV container instead of M4V?

So I ended up going back and testing it with an MKV file like you said and it worked perfectly. Transcoded just fine with subtitles enabled. Though, I do agree, that is a workaround, but I can't feasibly do that with my entire media library since 100% of the files are remixed into .m4v.

I appreciate the idea though because that can help even further in narrowing down the exact issue.

---

Try this: On the homepage of the WebUI, click your profile avatar in the top-right corner. Select "Playback," then uncheck "Prefer fMP4-HLS Media Container" and save your changes. If I have this option enabled, subtitles won't work when I try to play content on the Android TV client.

Okay, I tried this out but it unfortunately seemed to not do the trick.

[theguymadmax]

Here's a screenshot of it.