A Docker Mod for the LinuxServer.io Radarr/Sonarr v3 or higher Docker containers that adds a script to automatically strip out unwanted audio and subtitle tracks, keeping only the desired languages.

This unified script works in both Radarr and Sonarr. Use this mod in either container!

This mod supports Linux OSes only.

Production Container info:
Development Container info:

Installation

Configure your selected Docker container with all the port, volume, and environment settings from the original container documentation here:
linuxserver/radarr OR linuxserver/sonarr

Add the DOCKER_MODS environment variable to your compose.yml file or docker run command, as follows:

Stable/Production release: DOCKER_MODS=linuxserver/mods:radarr-striptracks
Dev/test release: DOCKER_MODS=thecaptain989/radarr-striptracks:latest

Example Docker Compose YAML Configuration

version: "2.1"
services:
  radarr:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/radarr
    container_name: radarr
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=America/Chicago
      - DOCKER_MODS=linuxserver/mods:radarr-striptracks
    volumes:
      - /path/to/data:/config
      - /path/to/movies:/movies
      - /path/to/downloadclient-downloads:/downloads
    ports:
      - 7878:7878
    restart: unless-stopped

Example Docker Run Command

docker run -d \
  --name=radarr \
  -e PUID=1000 \
  -e PGID=1000 \
  -e TZ=America/Chicago \
  -e DOCKER_MODS=linuxserver/mods:radarr-striptracks \
  -p 7878:7878 \
  -v /path/to/data:/config \
  -v /path/to/movies:/movies \
  -v /path/to/downloadclient-downloads:/downloads \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  lscr.io/linuxserver/radarr

Synology Screenshot

Example Synology Configuration

Start the container.

Configure a custom script from Radarr's or Sonarr's Settings > Connect screen and type the following in the Path field:
/usr/local/bin/striptracks.sh

Screenshot

Example Custom Script

The script will detect the language(s) defined in Radarr/Sonarr for the movie or TV show and only keep the audio and subtitles selected.
Alternatively, a wrapper script or an environment variable may be used to more granularly define which tracks to keep. See Wrapper Scripts or Environment Variable for more details.

You must configure language(s) in Radarr/Sonarr or pass command-line arguments for the script to do anything! See the next section for an example.

Radarr Configuration Example

The following is a simplified example and steps to configure Radarr so the script will keep Original and English languages of an imported movie.

Create a new Custom Format called "My Languages":

Screenshot

New Custom Format Example
Add two Language Conditions to the format, one for English, and one for Original:

Screenshots

New Language Conditions Example

Custom Format Conditions Example

Edit the 'Any' Quality Profile, changing the Language to "Any" and the Score to "10":

Screenshot

Radarr Quality Profile Example

Now, when Radarr imports a movie with the 'Any' Quality Profile, the script will keep only Original and English languages. This is equivalent to calling the script with --audio :org:eng --subs :org:eng command-line arguments. See Automatic Language Detection for more details.

Usage Details

The source video can be any mkvtoolnix supported video format. The output is an MKV file with the same name and the same permissions. Owner is preserved if the script is executed as root.
Chapters, if they exist, are preserved. The Title attribute in the MKV is set to the movie title plus year
(ex: The Sting (1973)) or the series title plus episode information (ex: Happy! 01x01 - What Smiles Are For).
The language of the video file will be updated in the Radarr or Sonarr database to reflect the actual languages preserved in the remuxed video, and the video will be renamed according to the Radarr/Sonarr rules if needed (for example, if a removed track would trigger a name change.)

If you've configured the Radarr/Sonarr Recycle Bin path correctly, the original video will be moved there.

WARNING: If you have not configured the Recycle Bin, the original video file will be deleted/overwritten and permanently lost.

If the resulting video file would contain the same tracks as the original, and it's already an MKV, the remux step is skipped.

Automatic Language Detection

Beginning with version 2.0 of this mod, the script may be called with no arguments. It will detect the language(s) configured within Radarr/Sonarr on the particular movie or TV show. Language selection(s) may be configured in Custom Formats (in Radarr v3 and higher and Sonarr v4 and higher), Quality Profiles (only in Radarr), or Language Profiles (Sonarr v3). Example screenshots are below.

Both audio and subtitle tracks that match the configured language(s) are kept.

The language selection 'Original' will use the language Radarr pulled from The Movie Database or that Sonarr pulled from The TVDB during its last refresh. Selecting this language is functionally equivalent to calling the script with --audio :org --subs :org command-line arguments. See Original language code below for more details.

The language selection 'Unknown' will match tracks with no configured language in the video file. Selecting this language is functionally equivalent to calling the script with --audio :und --subs :und command-line arguments. See Unknown language code below for more details.

The language selection 'Any' has two purposes (Radarr only):

It will trigger a search of languages in Custom Formats
If none are found, it will preserve all languages in the video file. This is functionally equivalent to calling the script with --audio :any --subs :any command-line arguments. See Any language code below for more details.

When using Custom Format language conditions and scoring you may not get the results you expect. This can be non-intuitive configuration, especially when using negative scoring, the 'Negate' option, and the 'Except Language' option. The script does not care what custom format is detected by Radarr/Sonarr on the video file, only what the scores are in the Quality Profile. If you choose to use Custom Formats, it is highly recommended to first run the script with the debug option -d, perform some test downloads and script runs, and then examine your results and the script logs closely to be sure things are working the way you want them to.

It is highly recommended to review the TraSH Guides setup instructions for Language Custom Formats.

Language Detection Precedence

The following chart represents the order of precedence that the script uses to decide which language(s) to select when there are multiple settings configured. Moving left to right, it will stop when it finds a configured language.

graph LR
  A[Command-Line]
  B["Quality
  Profile"] 
  C["Custom
  Formats"]
  D["Language Profile
  (Sonarr only)"]
  A-->B
  B-- 'Any' -->C
  C-->D

Descriptively, these steps are:

Command-line arguments (or environment variable) override all automatic language selection.
If there are no command-line arguments, the video's Quality Profile is examined for a language configuration (only supported in Radarr).
If there is no Quality Profile language or it is set to 'Any', then examine the Custom Formats and scores associated with the quality profile.
All language conditions with positive scores and Negated conditions with negative scores and non-Negated Except Language conditions with negative scores are selected.
If the Custom Format scores are zero (0) or there are none with configured language conditions, use the Language Profile (only supported in Sonarr v3)

For step 3 above, using Custom Formats when 'Any' is in the Quality Profile is consistent with the behavior described in TRaSH Guides.

Command-Line Syntax

Options and Arguments

The script also supports command-line arguments that will override the automatic language detection. More granular control can therefore be exerted or extended using tagging and defining multiple Connect scripts (this is native Radarr/Sonarr functionality outside the scope of this documentation).

The syntax for the command-line is:
striptracks.sh [{-a|--audio} <audio_languages> [{-s|--subs} <subtitle_languages>] [{-f|--file} <video_file>]] [{-l,--log} <log_file>] [{-c,--config} <config_file>] [{-d|--debug} [<level>]]

Table of Command-Line Arguments

Option	Argument	Description
-a, --audio	<audio_languages>	Audio languages to keep ISO 639-2 code(s) prefixed with a colon (`:`)
-s, --subs	<subtitle_languages>	Subtitle languages to keep ISO 639-2 code(s) prefixed with a colon (`:`)
-f, --file	<video_file>	If included, the script enters Batch Mode and converts the specified video file. Requires the `-a` option. Do not use this argument when called from Radarr or Sonarr!
-l, --log	<log_file>	The log filename Default is /config/log/striptracks.txt
-c, --config	<config_file>	Radarr/Sonarr XML configuration file Default is /config/config.xml
-d, --debug	[<level>]	Enables debug logging. Level is optional. Default is 1 (low) 2 includes JSON output 3 contains even more JSON output
--help		Display help and exit.
--version		Display version and exit.

The <audio_languages> and <subtitle_languages> are optional arguments that are colon (:) prepended language codes in ISO 639-2 format.
For example:

:eng
:fre
:spa

...etc.

Multiple codes may be concatenated, such as :eng:spa for both English and Spanish. Order is unimportant.

WARNING: If no subtitle language is detected via Radarr/Sonarr configuration or specified on the command-line, all subtitles are removed.

Any language code

The :any language code is a special code. When used, the script will preserve all language tracks, regardless of how they are tagged in the source video.

Original language code

The :org language code is a special code. When used, instead of retaining a specific language, the script substitutes the original movie or TV show language as specified in its The Movie Database or The TVDB entry.
As an example, when importing "Amores Perros (2000)" with options --audio :org:eng, the Spanish and English audio tracks are preserved.
Several Included Wrapper Scripts use this special code.

This feature relies on the 'originalLanguage' field in the Radarr/Sonarr database. The :org code is therefore invalid when used in Batch Mode.
The script will log a warning if it detects the use of :org in an invalid way, though it will continue to execute.

Unknown language code

The :und language code is a special code. When used, the script will match on any track that has a null or blank language attribute. If not included, tracks with no language attribute will be removed.

WARNING: It is common for M2TS and AVI files to have tracks with unknown languages! It is strongly recommended to include :und in most instances unless you know exactly what you're doing.

Special Handling of Audio

The script is smart enough to not remove the last audio track. There is in fact no way to force the script to remove all audio. This way you don't have to specify every possible language if you are importing a foreign film, for example.

Additionally, two ISO 639-2 language codes are handled specially: the "Uncoded languages" code of mis and the "No linguistic content" code of zxx.
Tracks with either of these codes are always retained as they are often used for instrumental tracks in silent films.
There is no way to force the script to remove audio tracks with these codes.

Examples

Command-line Examples

-d 2                              # Enable debugging level 2, audio and subtitles
                                  # languages detected from Radarr/Sonarr
-a :eng:und -s :eng               # Keep English and Unknown audio, and English subtitles
-a :org:eng -s :eng               # Keep English and Original audio, and English subtitles
:eng ""                           # Keep English audio and remove all subtitles
-d -a :eng:kor:jpn -s :eng:spa    # Enable debugging level 1, keeping English, Korean, and Japanese audio, and
                                  # English and Spanish subtitles
-f "/movies/Finding Nemo (2003).mkv" -a :eng:und -s :eng
                                  # Batch Mode
                                  # Keep English and Unknown audio and English subtitles, converting
                                  # video specified
-a :any -s ""                     # Keep all audio and remove all subtitles

Wrapper Scripts

To supply arguments to the script, you must either use one of the included wrapper scripts, create a custom wrapper script, or set the STRIPTRACKS_ARGS environment variable.

Included Wrapper Scripts

For your convenience, several wrapper scripts are included in the /usr/local/bin/ directory.
You may use any of these in place of striptracks.sh mentioned in the Installation section above.

List of scripts

striptracks-debug.sh       # Use detected languages, but enable debug logging
striptracks-debug-2.sh     # Use detected languages, enable debug logging level 2
striptracks-debug-max.sh   # Use detected languages, enable highest debug logging
striptracks-dut.sh         # Keep Dutch and Unknown audio, and Dutch subtitles
striptracks-eng.sh         # Keep English and Unknown audio, and English subtitles
striptracks-eng-debug.sh   # Keep English and Unknown audio, and English subtitles, and enable debug logging
striptracks-eng-fre.sh     # Keep English, French, and Unknown audio, and English and French subtitles
striptracks-eng-jpn.sh     # Keep English, Japanese, and Unknown audio and English subtitles
striptracks-fre.sh         # Keep French and Unknown audio, and French subtitles
striptracks-fre-debug.sh   # Keep French and Unknown audio, French subtitles, and enable debug logging
striptracks-ger.sh         # Keep German and Unknown audio, and German subtitles
striptracks-spa.sh         # Keep Spanish and Unknown audio, and Spanish subtitles
striptracks-org-eng.sh     # Keep Original, English, and Unknown audio, and Original and English subtitles
striptracks-org-ger.sh     # Keep Original, German, and Unknown audio, and Original and German subtitles
striptracks-org-spa.sh     # Keep Original, Spanish, and Unknown audio, and Original and Spanish subtitles

Example Wrapper Script

To configure an entry from the Examples section above, create and save a file called striptracks-custom.sh to /config containing the following text:

#!/bin/bash

. /usr/local/bin/striptracks.sh -d -a :eng:kor:jpn -s :eng:spa

Make it executable:

chmod +x /config/striptracks-custom.sh

Then put /config/striptracks-custom.sh in the Path field in place of /usr/local/bin/striptracks.sh mentioned in the Installation section above.

If you followed the Linuxserver.io recommendations when configuring your container, the /config directory will be mapped to an external storage location. It is therefore recommended to place custom scripts in the /config directory so they will survive container updates, but they may be placed anywhere that is accessible by Radarr or Sonarr.

Environment Variable

The striptracks.sh script can read command-line arguments from the STRIPTRACKS_ARGS environment variable. This allows advanced use cases without having to provide a custom script.

For example, the following lines in your compose.yml file would keep English, Japanese, and Unknown audio and English subtitles:

environment:
  - STRIPTRACKS_ARGS=--audio :eng:jpn:und --subs :eng

In a docker run command, it would be:

-e STRIPTRACKS_ARGS='--audio :eng:jpn:und --subs :eng'

Synology Screenshot

Example Synology Configuration

The environment variable is only read when no command-line arguments are present. Any command-line argument will disable the use of the environment variable.

Triggers

The only events/notification triggers that are supported are On Import and On Upgrade. The script will log an error if executed by any other trigger.

Batch Mode

Batch mode allows the script to be executed independently of Radarr or Sonarr. It converts the file specified on the command-line and ignores any environment variables that are normally expected to be set by the video management program.

Using this function, you can easily process all of your video files in any subdirectory at once. See the Batch Example below.

Script Execution Differences in Batch Mode

Because the script is not called from within Radarr or Sonarr, their database is unavailable to the script. Therefore, expect the following behavior while in Batch Mode:

The filename must be specified on the command-line.
The -f option places the script in Batch Mode
No audio or subtitles language detection occurs.
Both the audio and subtitles languages must be specified on the command-line.
The :org language code is meaningless.
The original video language cannot be determined.
The resultant MKV embedded title attribute is set to the basename of the file minus the extension.
The canonical name of the movie/TV show cannot otherwise be determined.
Radarr or Sonarr APIs are not called and their database is not updated.
This may require a manual rescan of converted videos.
Original video files are deleted.
The Recycle Bin function is not available.

Batch Example

To keep English and Unknown audio and English subtitles on all video files ending in .MKV, .AVI, or .MP4 in the /movies directory, enter the following at the Linux command-line:

find /movies/ -type f \( -name "*.mkv" -o -name "*.avi" -o -name "*.mp4" \) | while read file; do /usr/local/bin/striptracks.sh -f "$file" -a :eng:und -s :eng; done

Here's another example to keep English, Danish, and Unknown languages on all video files in your ./videos directory (requires the file program; testable with file -v):

find ./videos/ -type f | while read filename; do if file -i "$filename" | grep -q video; then /usr/local/bin/striptracks.sh -f "$filename" --audio :eng:dan:und --subs :eng:dan:und; fi; done

Logs

By default, a log file is created for the script activity called:

/config/logs/striptracks.txt

This log can be inspected or downloaded from Radarr/Sonarr under System > Logs > Files. The log filename can be modified with the --log command-line option.

Script errors will show up in both the script log and the native Radarr/Sonarr log.

Log rotation is performed with 5 log files of 512KB each being kept.

WARNING: If debug logging is enabled with a level above 1, the log file can grow very large very quickly. Do not leave high-level debug logging enabled permanently.

Uninstall

To completely remove the mod:

Delete the custom script from Radarr's or Sonarr's Settings > Connect screen that you created in the Installation section above.
Stop and delete the Radarr/Sonarr container.
Remove the DOCKER_MODS environment variable from your compose.yaml file or exclude it from the docker run command when re-creating the Radarr/Sonarr container.

Credits

This would not be possible without the following:

Radarr
Sonarr
LinuxServer.io Radarr container
LinuxServer.io Sonarr container
LinuxServer.io Docker Mods project
MKVToolNix by Moritz Bunkus
The AWK script parsing mkvmerge output is adapted from Endoro's post on VideoHelp.
Icons made by Freepik from Flaticon

Legacy Change Notes

Beginning with version 2.0 of this mod, it only supports v3 or later of Radarr/Sonarr. For legacy Radarr/Sonarr v2 please use mod release 1.3 or earlier.