Subtitle tracks found but not displayed in video

[ozzynx]

Hi,

I've tried to search the forums and I've found some questions dealing with this, but no solution that seems to work.

I am having trouble with subtitles when creating .mkv files of my blu rays. This is what happens:

1. When I run makemkv it finds the subtitle tracks. I select all of them, and run makemkv
2. When I play the video in VLC (or MKPlayer) the player finds the subtitle tracks. However, when I choose a subtitle track, no subtitles are displayed.

What might be the problem? I've tried trouble-shooting VLC but as subtitles are not displayed in MKPlayer either, I assume the issue is with the mkv file itself.

[Woodstock]

Subtitles are quite a bother. If you want to check a subtitle track, you have to go to where the subtitles will be. Not all tracks have all subtitles, and not all subtitle tracks are for the main audio.

Knowing which disk you're looking at would be helpful, as would seeing a debug log for the rip (FAQ link in my signature explains how to turn that on).

[ozzynx]

Thanks for the help. I tried to run makemkv again with the debug log on. I've included the log dump below. The issue that strikes me eye are the rows that say "Forced subtitles track #[number] turned out to be empty and was removed from output file". The blu-ray has subtitles, so not all subtitle tracks should be empty.

The blu rays themselves are some Finnish films. This one was called 8 ball.

Debug log started at Thu Jan 24 15:33:23 2019 , written by MakeMKV v1.14.2 darwin(x64-release)
Using 262272KB for read cache.
001005:0000 MakeMKV v1.14.2 darwin(x64-release) started
001004:0000 Debug logging enabled, log will be saved as /Users/oniiranen/MakeMKV_log.txt
002010:0000 Optical drive "DVD+R-DL HL-DT-ST DVDRW GX50N RR06d" opened in OS access mode.
002010:0000 Optical drive "BD-RE PIONEER BD-RW BDR-XS06 1.10d" opened in OS access mode.
DEBUG: Code 2365587456 at (/YVlr[>h*N'AVA5k:29394620
DEBUG: Code 2365587456 at (/YVlr[>h*N'AVA5k:29394620
003007:0000 Using direct disc access mode
005050:0000 Evaluation version, 20 day(s) out of 30 remaining
DEBUG: Code 2365587456 at (/YVlr[>h*N'AVA5k:29394620
DEBUG: Code 0 at -IbFTgc^Y5R&Ax,0:213140587
DEBUG: Code 0 at 3-&G:T%sH~_VhW_a:29401014
DEBUG: Code 2147483648 at -IbFTgc^Y5R&Ax,0:121265223
DAFD=PAAAADAAAAEABDQkEEwEBAQ==
DCE=SSeU14YEiN2Fk4H606Mfu/L9DfNco7n+xiAyD2KcsYxt+BI07uxrj8FAPcL8n/6VBOXBtwOeB2gSZXTwctVIvOnqaPVFeAddTC2zEkL3+bAPQcPs+X6SVhjCqiFjInYtMohRYdnWHH/WaIzbsDECBPbRymA2QZTHIg==
DCE=o4mQ5Hj+j7+gXeEqNv3Ho6/9SCnTnnokq+DCs59hY40CqskdNaq05ufIcHeF7s4vDQof6gRD2qrl/waaQJ4VJ7+/gLB/kWZZPk9MrGzfFPA9EWGneoXK62tMzARhvk/5VMird/TzjyXySxDBP66NfidGjzgomtA4SQ==
005085:0000 Loaded content hash table, will verify integrity of M2TS files.
DISCID=E534C07E7119548574A6D5FAEC905686D8B7512E
003307:0000 File 00000.mpls was added as title #0
003025:0000 Title #00013.m2ts has length of 15 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003025:0000 Title #00011.m2ts has length of 14 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003025:0000 Title #00015.m2ts has length of 15 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003025:0000 Title #00014.m2ts has length of 15 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003307:0000 File 00005.m2ts was added as title #1
003025:0000 Title #00004.m2ts has length of 1 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003025:0000 Title #00017.m2ts has length of 1 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003025:0000 Title #00016.m2ts has length of 12 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003025:0000 Title #00003.m2ts has length of 86 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003025:0000 Title #00002.m2ts has length of 100 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
003307:0000 File 00001.m2ts was added as title #2
003025:0000 Title #00012.m2ts has length of 15 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
005011:0000 Operation successfully completed
005014:0000 Saving 3 titles into directory /Users/oniiranen/Movies/Blu-ray
004001:0000 Forced subtitles track #2 turned out to be empty and was removed from output file
004001:0000 Forced subtitles track #4 turned out to be empty and was removed from output file
005005:0080 3 titles saved
005036:0104 Copy complete. 3 titles saved.

[Woodstock]

If you check out the Changing names with Expert mode enabled topic in the General forum, you can see where MakeMKV offers to create a "forced only" subtitle track for every track found in a title. This will be those subtitles that have the "forced" flag set, extracted from the main track.

When there are none with the flag set (the most usual case), the forced-only track is empty, so it is removed.

In this case, you have two subtitle tracks, and, if the title is dubbed, one of the tracks will (usually) only contain subtitles for signs and such, along with dialog that is not dubbed ("foreign audio"). The other will have "everything", for when you want to watch it in the native language.

Except where it is done differently... Which is rather often. It Studio Ghibli BDs I got this past month had as many as 4 English subtitles, and none of them were "forced" (the dub included opening/closing credits in English).

[ozzynx]

Thanks. I'm not sure whether you are recommending for me to do something with expert mode, or are you implying that there is nothing that I can do? I've tried two different blu rays (Finnish films, not dubbed). In some cases I have included all subtitle tracks, in some cases I've left out the forced-only tracks. No luck in any of my attempts.

[Woodstock]

I was referring you to where you can see the origin of the "empty track, deleting" message.

Without access to the disk itself, I cannot advise on what's going on with THAT particular disk. I do know a dozen different variations I've seen on other disks (90% or more of what I rip involves subtitles). I've been told about web sites that will tell you at what point in a movie the first subtitle SHOULD occur, but I did not commit that to memory. I used to think the safe place to look for subtitles was during the opening and closing themes, where the song would be translated, but more than a few titles have NO subtitling of music.

[Grauhaar]

Maybe it is the same problem as described in this thread: https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18589

MakeMKV has ripped it, but it looks like that something is wrong with it.

Best is to extract the subtitle tracks from the mkv file with "mkvextract" (MKVToolINX) or other tools and have a look into the extracted file(s) with "BDSup2Sub" what is going on.