Does no video with subtitles work in players?

[flojo]

I know it's odd, but I could see if you were listening to a .mka (audio file) in a different language but still want to know what was being sung. Or even for audio books/sing-a-longs. Regardless, I can't get them to display in VLC or SMPlayer.

[thetoad]

by definition an audio only file doesn't have a video track and all these players will not instantiate a video output without one, and therefore attached subtitles to an audio only file wont be displayed. You would need to get a player that will output video even if there's no video by default to get this to work. can take it up with the video players.