Forced subtitles flag not recognized

[spritle]

This has been an ongoing problem that nobody seems to want to fix. I see topics from 2016, 2017, 2018 that mention similar problems. I have files where there's a forced subtitles track, even some that I muxed myself with MKVtoolnix, so I know for a fact that the "forced" and "default" flags are set for that track. But the subtitles do not automatically show. I can turn them on, but they won't show automatically as they should. I tried the same files in the Windows version of VLC and they worked properly there, so this is obviously a problem with only the Mac version, all the way up to the current 3.0.16.

[MickM]

Thought I'd chime in here to say this has been, by far, my biggest issue with VLC for years and years. If this could get fixed I'd be totally delighted!
I had no idea the Windows version worked properly - that makes this long standing bug all the more disappointing because it's apparently just a Mac thing. Looks like all the algorithms have therefore been figured out - I honestly thought nobody ever tackled this because it was a very difficult problem. Sigh.

[fkuehne]

This is the very first time that I learn about this problem. Please share a sample file on this page https://streams.videolan.org/upload/ and give the file name here afterwards. Thank you.

[MickM]

I uploaded a TV episode package (Better Call Saul s04e01 Smoke 2916.dvdmedia) that contains forced subtitles embedded in the first subtitle track. When played with Apple's DVD Player app it will nicely ONLY show English subtitles during sections of foreign language speech (which starts at 29 min 16 sec). VLC (on the Mac) doesn't know how to decode and display only the parts of the first subtitle track that are forced subtitles - it just displays ALL of the subtitles in track 1. I have provided instructions below on how to run it but the OP says the Windows version of VLC isn't broken so I'm hoping you could start there.

Many thanks for taking an interest in this long standing problem!!!

Hmm - I was just about to submit this post when I noticed my file is over the allowed 1GB upload limit. In case it didn't upload successfully I also made a dropbox link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1wdfmqhew281 ... 6xPca?dl=0
Please post back if you were able to download the package because then I'll remove it from Dropbox (because I need the space).


Apple's DVD Player app has been abandoned after they stopped supporting optical media, but it is still shipped with macOS (I'm running Big Sur) - it can be found at /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/DVD\ Player.app. Making it work is a little quirky, so here are some instructions to play the TV episode:
Select the uploaded dvdmedia file, right click on it and select Show Package Contents. Open DVD Player and do File->Open to bring up the standard Open dialog box. Drag the VIDEO_TS folder from the Show Package Contents window into the DVD Player Open dialog box and then click Open at the bottom right. Finally, note that the DVD Player app needs both IFO files in the VIDEO_TS folder to be present so that it can play the episode and also display the forced subtitles.

[fkuehne]

Thanks, file received.

How do you play this in VLC? Do you use the Open Disk dialog and open the Video_TS folder as a Video_TS folder or are you play individual media?

[MickM]

I have my Mac setup so that all dvdmedia files are opened by VLC (which can be done by doing a Get Info on any dvdmedia file setting the "Open With" app there in the usual way). Alternatively, you can just drag a dvdmedia icon onto the VLC icon and it should work.

[fkuehne]

Can you please try to open the VIDEO_TS folder with the designated option in the Open Disk dialog? Does it make a difference for you regarding the subtitles handling?

Thanks you!

[MickM]

It doesn't change anything - the behavior is still the same i.e. the video comes up with no subtitles selected (same as Apple's DVD Player) only in VLC when you get to the part needing forced subtitles you don't see any because No Subtitles are selected (whereas you do see the forced subtitles in DVD Player). I realize now that my earlier post is actually wrong in describing what VLC does. It behaves like I just said here. If you do select the first subtitle track you get full-time English subtitles i.e. both for the English and Spanish spoken parts - and that behavior is also what happens in DVD Player. The difference between the two players is that with the default of No Subtitles selected DVD Player gives you forced subtitles and VLC doesn't. Very sorry for screwing that up and confusing you.

[MickM]

I just brought up the latest version of VLC for the PC in a virtual machine on my Mac and I am UNABLE to confirm the OP's statement that he gets forced subtitles showing in that world whereas he doesn't on the Mac side. For the file I provided a link to earlier, the forced subtitles do NOT show at the 29:16 mark even for the Windows version.
fkuehne: Are you able to confirm the forced subtitles naturally appearing using Apple's DVD Player? I'm assuming here you're on a Mac.

[MickM]

Just thought I'd bump this thread in the hopes that anybody might eventually address this subtitle shortcoming in VLC.

[Gigabit]

Bump

[Gigabit]

Can you please try to open the VIDEO_TS folder with the designated option in the Open Disk dialog? Does it make a difference for you regarding the subtitles handling?

Thanks you!

Can you please come back and help?

[Nishekan]

I believe the forced subtitle track not working properly is also present on Android. I played video, were I also did the encoding through MKVToolnix and the forced subtitle doesn't impose on the standard default track. Really love VLC, but this is a bummer. I can confirm the Mac version also has this bug. Haven't tried it on a Windows version, but I will and get back on this.

[fkuehne]

Someone recently contributed a patch to VLC that fixes the forced subtitles, so we may finally support this correctly in VLC version 4. Sadly, the patch is too invasive to backport to the current 3.x series.

[MickM]

Groan. I've tried to give VLC4 a try several times in the past and the UI (in my opinion anyway) was just too awful. Maybe the developers have improved things a little since the last time I tried - I'll try it again given that I consider VLC3 to be broken without this subtitle fix.

[fkuehne]

Note that the aforementioned patch was not merged yet and that the user interface of v4 is very much work-in-progress still.

[MickM]

Thanks very much for the clarification. It would be greatly appreciated if you could post here when the patch is live. I'm eager to give it a try.