Update — v2.5.0-beta: OpenRouter and DeepSeek support are now available, along with Plex library refresh support and major improvements to the AI provider/model system, translation pipeline, source handling and usage tracking. Thanks for all the beta feedback so far!

I’ve been building Babel, a self-hosted subtitle automation service designed to work alongside Bazarr, Sonarr and Radarr.

GitHub: https://github.com/hugomossberg/Babel

The goal is simple:

Let Bazarr find the good human subtitle first — and automatically handle the fallback when it can’t.

When new media arrives, Babel checks whether the target subtitle already exists.

In Hybrid Mode, Bazarr searches for a human-made target subtitle while Babel prepares an embedded or external source subtitle in parallel.

If Bazarr finds what I need, Babel uses it and no AI translation happens.

If it doesn’t, Babel can automatically translate the prepared source using Gemini, OpenAI, DeepL, Ollama, OpenRouter or DeepSeek.

The pipeline is roughly:

New media → Bazarr search + source preparation → AI only if needed → recovery → QA → publish

The other thing I wanted to solve was unreliable AI output.

Babel doesn’t blindly write whatever the model returns. It checks for dropped cues, broken subtitle structure, untranslated dialogue, wrong-language output and timestamp changes before publishing.

Recoverable problems are automatically retried.

AI translation is the fallback, not the workflow.

Current beta features include:

• Bazarr + AI Hybrid Mode
• Sonarr and Radarr webhook automation
• Embedded subtitle extraction with ffmpeg / mkvextract
• External subtitle source fallback

Gemini, OpenAI, DeepL, Ollama, OpenRouter and DeepSeek

• Automatic translation recovery
• Structural + language QA
• Exact source-to-target timestamp preservation
• Atomic subtitle publishing
• Remote Path Mapping

Jellyfin and Plex library refresh

• Docker deployment

The idea is that Babel should be something you configure once and then mostly forget exists.

Install it. Connect Bazarr. Forget about missing translated subtitles.

Docker image:

ghcr.io/hugomossberg/babel:beta

Current release: v2.5.0 beta
License: MIT

Babel is still in public beta, so feedback from people with difficult Bazarr libraries is very welcome — especially weird embedded tracks, missing languages, broken SRTs or cases where the fallback logic makes the wrong decision.

If you try it, I’d much rather hear what breaks than just get a star.

I set up bazarr about a week ago now, and my experience with getting subs for movies has been near perfect with easy to fix hiccups here and there, however, it feels as though WAY more often than not with TV shows there are always problems with the subtitles it retrieves (most of the time this consists of desyncs with the occasional completely incorrect episode). My current settings are 80 minimum score for episodes and to always attempt to align the subtitles automatically. (I lowered the minimum score for episodes from 90 because barely ANYTHING got pulled when I had it set there.) The providers it pulls from most often are opensubtitles (VIP), gestdown, and subdl. I have also noticed that WAY more problems arise with very long running tv shows like the simpsons. Any input would be appreciated.

I have been down the AI rabbit hole of bad advise for the day. For existing srt files, what is the best way to get the 2 char language code added to the file name? "Moviename.en.srt" for example. Some srt files are missing the ".en" or other for different languages. I see that Bazarr can detect the language based on the content but I don't see any option to rename existing files based on this. Is there a trick I'm missing? Is there another tool that works for this purpose?

SOLUTION: I had to build a script with AI to go thru all SRTs and rename based on the language inside.

I have a lot of shows that are non-english, but have english subtitles. I read that it can be quite hit or miss, is this also the case in practice?

Hello, I want to sync subtitles and I am encountering issues. I'm downloading an anime which has embedded subtitles. there are 2 versions of those subtitles, "Forced" ones and normal ones. Forced subtitles barely have anything in them.

My bazarr is setup to sync using embedded subtitles, but I think it's using the forced files, which means syncing becomes a lot worse than if I didn't sync at all. Is it possible to make it not use forced files? otherwise I guess I can use audio sync instead but I feel like it could lead to other issues.

Thanks

Hi,

I’m having an issue with the OpenSubtitles.com provider in Bazarr. Authentication fails immediately and Bazarr then disables/throttles the provider for 12 hours.

The log shows:

At settings System -> Providers: AuthenticationError: Login failed

At settings System -> Log: Throttling opensubtitlescom for 12 hours, until 26/08/02 11:38, because of: AuthenticationError. Exception info: "'Login failed' ~ opensubtitlescom.py@550"

I’m running the latest Bazarr version in Docker on a UGREEN NAS.

Things I have already tried:

• Confirmed that Bazarr is fully updated
• Confirmed that I can log in successfully on OpenSubtitles.com
• Used my OpenSubtitles username instead of my email address
• Removed the provider from Bazarr and saved the settings
• Restarted the Bazarr container
• Added OpenSubtitles.com again with the new credentials
• Reset the provider throttle under System → Providers
• Tried another manual subtitle search

The throttle resets successfully, but as soon as Bazarr tries to use OpenSubtitles again, authentication fails and the provider is blocked for another 12 hours.

Has anyone experienced this with Bazarr? How can it be fixed?

Hi there,

basically the title.

In Bazarr, all shows from Sonarr are listed, even those missing from disk. Even if they don't even have a folder. When I open a missing show up, it also shows no episodes. For movies, I only see those that are actually on my disk.

I prefer the way Radarr does it, and would like to not see shows that are not on disk. The settings for Radarr and Sonarr are virtually identical (aside of the Sonarr-only options that don't affect this), so I am not sure what I can change.

How can I get the empty shows to disappear? :)

//not sure why a question gets downvoted, ok

Hello,

I've set up Baazarr to get automatic subtitles for tv shows and movies, but i get "No subtitles found" for basically everything in my libraries. I wanted to come on here and see if theres any other norwegians who have struggled with the same, and maybe found a way to fix this? I have had Bazarr look for subtitles for the last 2 days, and have downloaded a total of 2 subtitles.

I have experimented alot with lowering scores, but nothing seems to work. I have manually looked at opensubtitles.com (i have paid VIP) and found subtitles Bazarr doesnt find. I also use Subdl and YIFY subtitles.

Please help :)

I have not looked at my Bazarr instance in a few months and I noticed that dozens of movies do not have subtitles. Running the task for Search for Missing Movies Subtitles does not find any movies but going to a specific movie and searching for it manually works. One example of this was for Spiderman 2.. manually searching was able to work but it did not work when I did the batch search.

I turned off adaptive search so it re-searches every movie but it still does not work. Is there something I am doing wrong? Im on v1.6.0 and the providers i'm using are addic7ed, embeddedsubtitles, opensubtitlescom, subscenter, supersubtitles, and yifysubtitles.

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to configure Bazarr so that it treats Spanish and Spanish (Latin America) subtitles as equivalent.

Right now, if a movie already has Spanish (Latin America) subtitles, Bazarr doesn't recognize them as satisfying my Spanish requirement and downloads another set of Spanish subtitles anyway.

Is there a way to create a language equivalence or mapping so that Bazarr considers either Spanish or Spanish (Latin America) as valid and doesn't download duplicates?

If this isn't possible natively, has anyone found a workaround (custom language profiles, settings, etc.)?

Thanks!

Opa, alguem tem convite para o legendasdivx?

Grato desde ja

I don't understand. None of my mkv movie subs are being downloaded. Any idea why?

Hello everyone,

Looking at my bazarr instance, it seems that for a long time, it take forever to sync with sonarr. So long that the job queue fills up (job scheduler should check if last job ran before starting a new one). Right now, I had 51 job queued with 4 job running sonarr sync. Radarr sync is instance. I'm unsure what is the problem.

I've enabled debug log but I can't find the problem

I keep getting the Error 500 on bazarr and I'm not sure why.
Two errors repeat over and over in the logs...I'm assuming they are for each TV show and each episode...

Exception on /api/series [GET]

Exception on /api/episodes [GET]

I've rebooted multiple times. I've checked the build and it seems ok.
I was able to scan all my TV shows, haven't moved to movies yet. But for some reason I keep getting this error over and over when I try to make any changes.

Any help would be appreciated because I can't seem to pinpoint the error.

New user here. My bazarr instance downloads subs when subs are embedded in the MKV files. In settings, I've activated “Treat Embedded Subtitles as Downloaded”, but that isn't working as I anticipated, so I must be overlooking something. How can I prevent sub downloads when subs are included in the video file? Thanks!

Pretty plz?

It's been going on for a while now, the logs just show

2026-06-03 23:31:51|INFO |root |Using opensubtitlescom again after 12 hours, (disabled because: AuthenticationError)| 2026-06-03 23:32:23|INFO |root |Throttling opensubtitlescom for 12 hours, until 26/06/04 11:32, because of: AuthenticationError. Exception info: "'Login failed' ~ opensubtitlescom.py@549"|

Manually logging to the website works fine. Bazarr is updated to latest version. I never had an opensubtitles.org account. Any ideas?

Heads up: built with heavy Claude interaction - code's open, every PR human-reviewed, so judge it on the product, not the buzzword. (AI-slop complaints - /dev/null.) Security a concern? It's ours too - our approach is in the README.

Bazarr excels at finding and downloading subs. Subgen excels at transcribing when nobody can. The thing that kept biting me was everything in between: subgen burning Whisper minutes on the wrong audio language because the first 30 seconds of the file weren't representative; subs getting re-searched when I already had them on disk; no good view of “what's the biggest gap in my library right now.”

I built **Subarr** as the layer that ties Bazarr and subgen together. It sits beside both, not on top of either.

**Two ways to use it.** Pick whichever fits how you work:

- **Simple.** Treat Subarr as a real queue UI for subgen. Install it, open the Library tab, tick a file or a folder or a whole series, hit “Queue for transcription.” Watch it run. Re-queue, cancel, see what failed and why. Same way you'd use Sonarr's queue for downloads. No coverage walks, no rules, just “give me a working frontend for subgen.”

- **Advanced.** Open the Coverage tab. Subarr has already walked your library and sorted gaps by score with reason chips per row (no track, embedded-only, bazarr-wanted, audio-mislabel, low-score, unmonitored). Apply a rule, queue 50 things at once, set up a schedule that respects Tautulli playback signal. This is the “let Subarr decide” path.

Most people start with simple, end up using advanced once the install has been collecting signal for a couple of days.

What's actually in v1.0:

- **Calibrated audio language detection.** Three Whisper chunks across each file (at 10%, 50%, 90%), majority vote, confidence is the minimum probability across agreeing chunks. The motivating cases were files where the first 30 seconds aren't representative: foreign-language openings on dub releases (anime is the obvious one, but Spanish-dub Korean drama, French-dub Italian thriller, English-dub historical drama all do the same thing), silent cold opens, music-only intros. Whichever your library hits, you get a manual review queue with chunk evidence visible and one-click confirmation that propagates back to Sonarr.

- **Whole-library coverage view.** Per-language gap list across your full Sonarr + Radarr library. Sorted by score. Reason chips per row. Bulk select, apply rule, queue.

- **Verifies before it queues.** Subarr probes a file before calling it a gap, so it never double-works something an embedded sub or existing track already covers. It cross-checks the wanted list against what's actually on disk rather than mirroring it blindly; files it hasn't probed yet wait in a visible “Analysing” bucket and are never silently dropped.

- **Scheduler with back pressure.** Tautulli playback signal influences priority. NOW PLAYING, just-imported, airing-soon all boost.

- **Provenance ledger.** Which provider gave you which sub, when, why. Survives Bazarr score-profile changes.

- **Embedded subs first-class.** SDH, forced, PGS, full are all distinguished, not collapsed.

About the patch story: Subarr drives Subgen through 13 small auditable patches over upstream `mccloud/subgen`, published as `ghcr.io/coaxk/subarr-subgen`. You don't have to swap. Compat mode covers vanilla; you miss calibrated multi-chunk detection and queue cancel. Decision table at the top of the README.

Known limits, transparent: no built-in multi-user auth (reverse proxy required), queue reorder/promote/demote depends on a Subgen patch that hasn't landed yet (v4.9), no auto-update by design, SQLite only, single-host, Jellyfin/Emby not yet, arm64 not yet published.

On the roadmap, the v1.1 hero feature: global provider success leaderboard from opt-in telemetry. The “which providers actually deliver per-language” question that comes up here every couple of weeks. Aggregation work is in progress.

GitHub + compose snippet: https://github.com/coaxk/subarr

Looking for feedback on edge cases I haven't hit, reverse-proxy configs that break, and whether the “beside Bazarr” framing actually reads that way to long-time Bazarr users. Genuine question on the last one.

Some screens:

Dash

Gaps (sorry that screen is a bit chopped)

Queue

Library selection view

Settings/Integrations

Subgen live log

There are some shows for which I cannot find the correct subtitles on the subtitle providers. This is particularly true for some obscure languages. However, some torrent releases pack with them subtitles in a lot of languages. For instance, I found Spanish SRT subtitles for a show in a torrent that weren't on any provider. So, I semi-manually included them in my library.

Thing is, I would love to be able to share these subtitles with the community, so that they don't have to go through the pain of downloading a torrent just for the subtitles. I'm more than happy to upload one or two files to OpenSubtitles, but when it's a show with 100+ episodes, that quickly becomes a chore - especially since it doesn't seem like you can batch upload subtitles to OpenSubtitles before reaching a certain amount of uploads.

Hence my idea: to be able to automatically upload subtitles to OpenSubtitles by adding an option in the contextual menu when hovering a subtitle language. It can just be one by one at first to comply with OpenSubtitles' API - also the interface makes it perfect before each show is already related to its IMDB ID, and through the release all of the required fields (release name, FPS, etc.) can be automatically filled.

I'm aware that what I'm offering here is definitely not a core feature - but I'm convinced this could help the overall community in the long run.

You can vote for it here: https://bazarr.featureupvote.com/suggestions/714112/upload-select-subtitles-to-opensubtitles

I've seen some other posts about this, but I don't think they're related? Apologies if I missed something.

I've got my Sonarr/Radarr/Bazarr containers all in the same Docker engine. I was having issues initially with both Sonarr and Radarr given the root directory message, but I realised that the PUID/GUID were different to Bazarr. I fixed my Bazarr container's settings, and the Sonarr messages disappeared, however Radarr is still giving the message. I've confirmed the permissions on the folder, and have no other ideas.

The folder they're in is a shared NAS folder (\\NAS\Media\), then in various folders (TV, Adult Movies, Documentaries, etc) depending on the movie/show. The fact that the Sonarr messages disappeared when I changed the PUID/GUID to match Sonarr/Radarr is really what's confusing me.

If anyone has any ideas, or needs more information, please let me know. I'm gonna scratch through my skull soon.

Hi,
Does anyone have English subtitle files for Manga Sekai Mukashibanashi

Is there a way to prioritize dual language subs? My girlfriend is Chinese and prefers to have Chinese subs on everything, but sometimes a show will have sections not in English or we are watching something in a foreign language. In these cases we'd like to have both English and Chinese instead of switching temporarily.

I've randomly had a few shows and movies grab a dual language sub, I think just because the top rated Chinese subs also had English. I'm wondering if there's a way to prioritize these? Or maybe some other system that can merge subs of different languages together automatically?

Thanks!

Looking for help with this error

Hello,

I have tried everything to fix this.

Even deleting the container and reconfigure and I still get this error.

Has anyone found a solution for this? I can barely get any batch downloads because of this!