About

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

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

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

NOTE: This mod supports Linux OSes only.

Container info:
Production Container info:

Installation

1. Pull your selected container (linuxserver/radarr or linuxserver/sonarr) from GitHub Container Registry or Docker Hub:
   docker pull lscr.io/linuxserver/radarr:latest OR
   docker pull lscr.io/linuxserver/sonarr:latest

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

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

      • Stable 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
      

      Example Synology Configuration
      

   2. Start the container.

3. 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

   Example
   

   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 may be used to more granularly define which tracks to keep. See Wrapper Scripts for more details.

Usage

The source video can be any mkvtoolnix supported video format. The output is an MKV file with the same name.
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.
NOTE: 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 Quality Profiles (only in Radarr), Custom Formats (in Radarr v3 and higher and Sonarr v4 and higher), 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 options. 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 options. See Unknown language code below for more details.

The Radarr language selection 'Any' has two purposes:

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

Note: When using the Custom Format conditions and scoring to select languages you may not get the results you expect. This can be non-intuitive configuration, especially when using negative scoring and the 'Negate' option. The script does not care what custom format is detected (aka applied) 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.

Radarr Quality Profile Example

Custom Format Condition Example

Radarr Custom Format Language Score Example

Language Detection Precedence

The following chart represents the order of precedence that the script follows 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:

1. Command-line options override all automatic language selection.
2. If there are no command-line options, the video's Quality Profile is examined for a language configuration (only supported in Radarr).
3. 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 score are selected.
4. If the Custom Format scores are zero (0) or there are none with configured language conditions, examine the Language Profile (only supported in Sonarr v3)

Note: 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>] [{-d|--debug} [<level>]]

Where:

Option	Argument	Description
-a, --audio	<audio_languages>	Audio languages to keep ISO639-2 code(s) prefixed with a colon (:)
-s, --subs	<subtitle_languages>	Subtitle languages to keep IISO639-2 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. WARNING: Do not use this argument when called from Radarr or Sonarr!
-l, --log	<log_file>	The log filename Default of /config/log/striptracks.txt
-d, --debug	[<level>]	Enables debug logging. Level is optional. Default of 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 ISO639-2 format.
For example:

• :eng
• :fre
• :spa

...etc.

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

NOTE: If no subtitle language is detected in the profile 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.

NOTE: 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.

NOTE: It is common for M2TS and AVI containers 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

-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 "/path/to/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, one of the included wrapper scripts may be used or a custom wrapper script must be created.

Included Wrapper Scripts

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

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 audio and 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 subtitles
striptracks-eng-jpn.sh     # Keep English, Japanese, and Unknown audio and English subtitles
striptracks-fre.sh         # Keep French audio and subtitles
striptracks-fre-debug.sh   # Keep French audio and subtitles, and enable debug logging
striptracks-ger.sh         # Keep German audio and subtitles
striptracks-spa.sh         # Keep Spanish audio and subtitles
striptracks-org-eng.sh     # Keep Original, English, and Unknown audio, and English and Unknown subtitles
striptracks-org-ger.sh     # Keep Original and German audio, and Original and German subtitles
striptracks-org-spa.sh     # Keep Original and Spanish 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.

Note: 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.

Triggers

The only events/notification triggers that have been tested are On Import and On Upgrade

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, 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 without the Radarr/Sonarr database.
• 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

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.

NOTE: 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:

1. Delete the custom script from Radarr's or Sonarr's Settings > Connect screen that you created in the Installation section above.
2. Stop and delete the Radarr/Sonarr container.
3. 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