Subtitles not showing on an LG TV: how to fix it

LG TVs play videos from a USB stick or a media server with their own player, and that player reads external subtitle files. When it doesn’t, there is no error message: the film plays and the subtitles are simply missing, or they show up as rows of strange characters.

This guide covers your own video files played with the LG player. Netflix, Disney+ and other apps have their own subtitle menus inside each app.

1. Same name, same folder

LG’s own support page puts it simply: the video file and the subtitle file should share the same name. In practice that means exactly the same, apart from the extension, with both files in the same folder:

The.Long.Night.2024.1080p.mkv
The.Long.Night.2024.1080p.srt

movie.en.srt or movie.eng.srt next to movie.mkv may not be picked up, and neither will a file whose name differs by one space or capital. On Windows, turn on View → Show → File name extensions in File Explorer to make sure the subtitle isn’t really movie.srt.txt.

2. Check that the format is on LG’s list

LG lists these external subtitle formats for its TVs: SMI, SRT, SUB (MicroDVD and SubViewer 1.0/2.0), ASS, SSA, TXT (TMPlayer), PSB (PowerDivX) and DCS. Subtitles inside the video are read from .mkv files (SSA, ASS and SRT tracks) and from .mp4 files (Timed Text).

What is missing matters just as much:

• VTT is not on the list. Files from YouTube, online courses and web players are often .vtt; convert them with VTT to SRT.
• ASS and SSA are listed, but styled anime subtitles can still fail or show codes such as {\an8}. If one doesn’t work, ASS to SRT gives you a plain file.
• SBV files from YouTube Studio aren’t listed either: use SBV to SRT.

When in doubt, use SRT. It is the format every LG model reads.

3. Broken letters: an encoding problem

If accented letters show as é, Ä‘, boxes or question marks, the TV is reading the file with the wrong text encoding. LG’s support page suggests opening the subtitle in Windows Notepad and saving it again with ANSI encoding. That can work for English and Western European files on a TV set to the same region, because ANSI means the Windows code page of your own computer. It doesn’t help a Vietnamese file on an English Windows computer, for example.

A more reliable route:

1. Open the file in Fix Subtitle Encoding. It detects which encoding the file was written in and shows the repaired text, so you can see the letters are right before you save.
2. Download it as UTF-8, which modern LG TVs read.
3. If an older LG still shows wrong letters, download again with Add a BOM for older TVs and players ticked.
4. Only if that fails, try LG’s ANSI advice on the fixed file.

If the letters are correct on your computer but the TV shows empty boxes, the TV is using a font without those letters. Look for a subtitle language or code page option in the player’s subtitle settings.

4. The video itself must be supported

This one surprises people. LG notes that subtitles may not work when the TV doesn’t support the video’s codec, even if the file plays on a computer. A video that plays with a warning, or only with sound, may lose its subtitles too. If one particular film never shows subtitles while others do, the video file is the likely cause: try the same subtitle with a different copy of the film, ideally an .mp4 or .mkv with H.264 or H.265 video.

5. Turn subtitles on during playback

While the video plays, open the player’s on-screen controls (press the wheel or OK on the Magic Remote) and look for the subtitle or settings icon. Switch subtitles on and choose the external file if several tracks are listed. Menu names vary between webOS versions; your TV’s built-in user guide has the exact steps for your model.

If the .mkv already contains subtitle tracks, the player may default to one of those. Step through every entry.

6. USB works but the network doesn’t

When you stream from a computer or NAS over DLNA, the media server decides what reaches the TV, and many servers send no external subtitles at all. LG also notes that SMI subtitles are limited over DLNA. Test with the same files on a USB stick first. If they work there, either use an app that handles subtitles itself (Plex and Jellyfin both have LG apps) or add the subtitle to the .mkv as a track.

7. The subtitles are early or late

If the lines show but don’t match the voices, the subtitle was made for a different release. Fix the file once and it works everywhere:

• Subtitle Player: play the video with the subtitle in your browser, nudge it earlier or later until it matches, and download the synced file.
• Change Subtitle Frame Rate: for subtitles that start in sync and drift further off as the film goes on.

Still nothing?

• Mind the size limits. LG’s support page lists maximum sizes for video files and USB drives; a very large file on a large drive may not be handled by older models.
• Rename both files to something short, like movie.mkv and movie.srt, to rule out odd characters.
• Clean up the file. A damaged SRT, with missing numbers or blank lines, can be skipped. Subtitle Cleaner writes it back in a standard layout.

See also Subtitles not showing on Samsung TV, Roku subtitles not showing and the general guide Subtitles not showing on TV.