Six rounds of real-server debugging (see docs/architecture.md's player-
track-selection section) found three different, unrelated reasons a
server-side burn-in could fail - missing fonts, a bitmap format libass
fundamentally can't burn, ffmpeg failing outright on an otherwise
unremarkable file - none of which this app's own request ever caused or
could have fixed, all downstream of the one thing every attempt had in
common: asking Emby for a real-time video re-encode. Not needing that
re-encode at all closes the whole class of failure instead of chasing
each one.
- server/src/services/CatalogService.ts: new proxySubtitle asks Emby to
convert the track to WebVTT (GET /Videos/{id}/{mediaSourceId}/
Subtitles/{index}/Stream.vtt - a real Emby endpoint their own web
client already uses for this) - entirely separate from the video
transcode. applyPlaybackOverrides lost its SubtitleStreamIndex/
SubtitleMethod=Encode branch - the video request no longer needs to
know a subtitle was picked at all.
- server/src/types.ts, client/src/types.ts: PlaybackTrackOption's flag
renamed supportsBurnIn -> isTextBased - same underlying fact (image vs
text codec), but the name shouldn't keep describing a mechanism this
app no longer uses.
- server/src/index.ts: new GET /api/catalog/subtitle/:itemId/:subtitleIndex
route, grouped with the other cookie-authed media-element routes (a
<track> can't send a bearer header either).
- client/src/api/embyApi.ts: new subtitleUrl(); streamUrl no longer
carries SubtitleStreamIndex at all.
- client/src/views/player/Player.ts: the subtitle <select> no longer
reloads the video (reloadWithCurrentOptions, still used for audio/
quality, never touches subtitles now). New applySubtitleTrack()
removes/re-adds a fresh <track> and sets video.textTracks[0].mode =
'showing' synchronously right after appending - deliberately not
waiting on the <track>'s own "load" event, confirmed against a real
browser that it doesn't fire reliably at all (a known cross-browser
quirk), which would have left a subtitle silently never shown - the
exact symptom this whole saga started from. Re-applied on every video
(re)load so an audio/quality change (which does still reload the
video) doesn't drop whatever subtitle was showing.
- server/test/catalogService.test.ts: updated/new cases for
proxySubtitle and the renamed isTextBased flag; removed the test for
the now-deleted subtitle-forcing behavior.
Verified against the real compiled bundle: picking a text track adds one
<track> with the right URL and flips it to showing; "Aucun" removes it;
an image-coded track is listed but disabled; changing audio reloads the
video but the subtitle survives it, same element, still showing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Nicolas
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