Plex Sub Downloader

NOTE: This project is no longer under development. After a year or so of working on this, I haven't been able to get it working consistently for myself or others.

I've just given up and started using Bazarr, as I've found myself using Sonarr and Radarr for a lot of my media management now. To their credit, as much as I don't care for them, they work pretty well.

So don't use this project! It only sort of works, and it's been abandonded by its developer.

What is it?

This is a command-line tool designed to automate the downloading of subtitles for media on your Plex Media Server. It makes use of Flask and Python-PlexAPI to listen for newly-added media, and Subliminal to search your favorite subtitle providers.

Okay, Cool, but Why?

Plex has built-in Agents for downloading subtitles from OpenSubtitles.org, but it doesn't search for subtitles automatically, and, more importantly, doesn't support VIP accounts (which means you're stuck reading ads in your subtitles!).

Plex Plugins like Sub-Zero are getting increasingly complicated to install and use, as Plex has been threatening to completely phase out plugins since 2018.

And there's other tools like Bazarr, which works best if you've already bought into the Sonarr/Radarr ecosystem. But, honestly, while these tools are great, I find them to be over-built for what I want to do.

I just wanted something that tries to download subtitles for new media added to my Plex server, and that's it.

Features

• Automatically download subtitles for one or more languages when new media is added
• Ignore existing subtitles in favor of preferred formats (ie replace .ssa with .srt)
• Automatically download and enable/disable subtitles for the next episode of the show that you and other users are watching

Requirements

• Requires python >=3.8
• You'll need to purchase Plex Pass to enable push notifications and webhooks

Setup

NOTE: This project is still VERY MUCH a work in progress. The setup process will hopefully be easier in a future release.

First, ~install plex_sub_downloader~ (this project is no longer available through pypi, if you really want to use it, you'll need to download the project from github)

Then, find an auth token for your Plex account: https://support.plex.tv/articles/204059436-finding-an-authentication-token-x-plex-token/

Then, create a config.json file somewhere:

{
    "plex_base_url": "<url to your plex server, ie http://localhost:32400>",
    "plex_auth_token": "<your auth token here>",
    "languages": [
        "eng"
    ],
    "webhook_host": "0.0.0.0",
    "webhook_port": <some port number, default = 5000>
}

• Next, run configtest on this config file to make sure it's formatted correctly

  plex_sub_downloader --config path/to/config.json configtest

You should get a result like:

2022-07-16 21:08:38:plex_sub_downloader:INFO - Testing config file '/path/to/config.json'
2022-07-16 21:08:38:plex_sub_downloader:INFO - config file is valid.

Running the Webhook Listener Thing

To start plex_sub_downloader in webhook mode, run:

plex_sub_downloader --config path/to/config.json start-webhook

Assuming it starts and runs correctly, you should see something like the following:

 2023-04-01 15:51:01:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - Configuring PlexSubDownloader
2023-04-01 15:51:01:plex_sub_downloader:INFO - plex-sub-downloader starting up
2023-04-01 15:51:01:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - Checking if webhook url http://192.168.1.248:5000/webhook has been added to Plex...
2023-04-01 15:51:02:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - webhook url http://192.168.1.248:5000/webhook has been added to Plex

If it says webhook url {webhookUrl} has been added to Plex, then congrats, things worked right.

If instead it says Could not add the webhook url {webhookUrl} to Plex. You may need to manually add this through the web dashboard., then try the following:

The url you'll need to add to Plex will be http://<ip address>:<port>/webhook.

• Open Plex, navigate to Settings, and select Webhooks from the left-hand menu.
• Click 'Add Webhook' and add your webhook url.

Verifying that the Webhook Works

To verify that Plex can call your webhook, re-run the above startup command, and add the --debug flag, then start playing a video on Plex. You'll get a big dump of data, starting with:

2022-07-16 21:28:14:PlexSubDownloader:DEBUG - handleWebhookEvent
2022-07-16 21:28:14:PlexSubDownloader:DEBUG - Event type: media.play

Verifying that Subtitles Can Get Downloaded

To verify that subtitles can be downloaded, add something new to your library. Within about 10-20 seconds, you should see output like:

2022-07-19 14:14:30:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - Handling library.new event
2022-07-19 14:14:30:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - Title: Wild Wild West, type: movie, section: Movies
2022-07-19 14:14:30:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - Found 1 videos missing subtitles
2022-07-19 14:14:30:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - ['Wild Wild West, /library/metadata/45525']
2022-07-19 14:14:30:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - Downloading subtitles for 1 videos
2022-07-19 14:14:30:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - ['Wild Wild West']
2022-07-19 14:14:32:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - Saving subtitles to Plex metadata
2022-07-19 14:14:32:PlexSubDownloader:INFO - found 1 for video /path/to/movies/Wild.Wild.West.1999/Wild.Wild.West.1999.mp4

Congrats! It's probably working?

Manually Running for a Specific Video

plex_sub_downloader also has a command for manually checking a Movie, Episode, Season, or Show for missing subtitles. Simply run plex_sub_downloader with the check-video command option, and pass it the item's metadata key:

plex_sub_downloader --config path/to/config.json check-video /library/metadata/42069

Command-line Arguments

Configuration

Example configuration:

{
    "plex_base_url": "http://127.0.0.1:32400",
    "plex_auth_token": "<token-goes-here>"
    "webhook_host": "0.0.0.0",
    "webhook_port": 6669,
    "subtitle_destination": "metadata",
    "languages": [
        "eng"
    ],
    "format_priority": [
        "srt", 
        "smi"
    ],
    "set_next_episode_subtitles": true,
    "subtitle_providers": [
        "opensubtitlesvip"
    ],
    "subtitle_provider_configs": {
        "opensubtitlesvip": {
            "username": "<username here>",
            "password": "<password here>"
        }
    },
    "log_level": "DEBUG"
}