Subtitles not showing on a Samsung TV: how to fix it

You copied a film and its subtitle file to a USB stick, plugged it into your Samsung TV, and the film plays without a single line of text. Or the text shows up as é and question marks. Samsung’s built-in media player reads external subtitle files, but it is pickier than VLC on a computer, and when something is wrong it says nothing: the subtitles simply don’t appear.

The checks below are for playing your own files from USB or from a media server with the TV’s own player. They start with the causes behind most cases. If you watch in Netflix, Prime Video or another streaming app, the subtitles come from that app and you switch them on in its own player.

1. Give both files exactly the same name

The Samsung player only pairs a subtitle with a video when the two names are identical apart from the extension, and both files sit in the same folder:

The.Long.Night.2024.1080p.mp4
The.Long.Night.2024.1080p.srt

A dot, a space or a capital letter that differs is enough for the TV to skip the file. Language codes such as .en.srt or .eng.srt, which Plex and VLC handle, are a common reason a file that works on a computer is ignored by the TV. Start with the plain name; once it works, you can experiment.

Look for a hidden second extension. Windows hides known extensions, so a file that looks like movie.srt may really be movie.srt.txt or movie.srt.srt. Turn on View → Show → File name extensions in File Explorer and check both files.

Try a folder. Several Samsung owners report that subtitles were ignored when the files sat at the top of the USB stick and appeared once both were moved into a folder, for example Videos/. It costs nothing to try.

2. Turn the subtitles on in the player

The TV may find the file and still keep subtitles off. While the video plays, bring up the control bar with the select button on the remote and open the player’s settings or options. Look for Subtitles, switch them on, and pick the external file if there is more than one track. Menu names differ between model years, so if you don’t see the option, check the e-Manual built into your TV (search it for “subtitles”).

If the video file already contains subtitle tracks, as many .mkv files do, the TV may be showing one of those, or an empty one. Go through every entry in the subtitle list.

3. Use a format the TV reads: SRT is safest

Samsung’s e-Manuals list several external formats for most models, typically SubRip (.srt), SAMI (.smi), MicroDVD and SubViewer (.sub), and SubStation Alpha (.ssa and .ass). In practice, SRT is the one that works on every model and year. Owners regularly report that the player shows all subtitles as plain white text, so colours and positions from an ASS file are lost anyway.

• .vtt (from YouTube, web players or online courses) is not on Samsung’s usual list. Convert it with VTT to SRT.
• .ass or .ssa (anime, fansubs) that don’t show, or show with codes such as {\an8}: convert with ASS to SRT.
• A text .sub file (MicroDVD, lines like {120}{240}Hello): SUB to SRT turns it into SRT with real times. A .sub that comes with an .idx file contains DVD pictures, not text, and can’t be converted here.
• Image subtitles inside an .mkv (PGS from Blu-ray, VobSub from DVD) are reported not to display on Samsung TVs at all. You need a text version of those subtitles instead.

4. Fix broken letters: save the file as UTF-8

If accented letters turn into é, Ä‘ or boxes, or a Vietnamese, Arabic, Greek or Cyrillic file shows nothing, the problem is the text encoding. Many subtitle files were saved years ago in a regional code page such as Windows-1252 or Windows-1258. A computer player guesses which one; the Samsung player expects UTF-8 and shows garbage when the guess would be needed.

Open the file in Fix Subtitle Encoding. It works out which encoding the file was written in, shows you the repaired text and saves it as UTF-8. If an older Samsung set still shows wrong letters, tick Add a BOM for older TVs and players and download again: some TVs only recognise UTF-8 when the file starts with that mark.

5. Play from USB, not over the network

Playing from a computer or NAS over DLNA (the TV’s “Connected devices” or source list) is where external subtitles most often vanish, even with perfect names. The media server decides what it sends, and many send only the video. Copy the same two files to a USB stick: if the subtitles appear there, the file is fine and the server is the problem.

For network playback, either use an app that handles subtitles itself, such as Plex or Jellyfin for Samsung TVs, or put the subtitle inside the video as a track. An .mkv with an SRT track is widely supported; MKVToolNix does this without re-encoding the video.

6. The subtitles show, but at the wrong time

If the text is there but appears early, late, or further and further off, the file was made for a different release of the film. The Samsung player has no fine delay control, so fix the file itself:

• Open the subtitle and the video in Subtitle Player on a computer, nudge the timing until the lines match, and download the synced file.
• If the first lines match but later ones drift away, the frame rates differ. Change Subtitle Frame Rate fixes that.

How to fix subtitles out of sync explains how to tell the two apart.

Still nothing?

• Update the TV. Owners of some 2019 models traced broken subtitles to one firmware update, fixed in a later one. Check Settings → Support → Software Update.
• Shorten the names. Very long names, emoji or unusual symbols can trip up the player. Rename both files to movie.mp4 and movie.srt as a test.
• Check the USB stick. FAT32 and exFAT are read by Samsung TVs; a Mac-formatted stick is not.
• Check the file itself. An SRT with missing blank lines or broken timing lines can be skipped. Opening it in Subtitle Cleaner and downloading the result writes it back in a clean, standard layout.

Other brands have their own quirks: see Subtitles not showing on LG TV, Roku subtitles not showing and the general guide Subtitles not showing on TV. Every tool here runs in your browser, so your files never leave your device.