Environment

StreamFab version: 7.0.2.6 (latest)
Platform / OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit, 25H2 (build 26200.8457)
Region / Country: France
Service: Rakuten Viki
Show / Episode: Zhan Zhao Adventures — S01E01 (FR title: Les aventures de Zhan Zhao)
Date of capture: 2026-05-23

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Issue summary

The English .srt produced by StreamFab from Rakuten Viki has two systematic anomalies:

All bracketed/forced cues are emptied. Cues with the pattern [...] in the original Viki stream are written with blank content (3 whitespace characters), while the cue number and timecode are preserved. These cues carry essential context: episode title, scene location signs, character introduction cards.
All ... italic tags are stripped, even on regular dialogue cues (e.g. the translator credit at the very beginning).

Result for the viewer: a black screen with nothing displayed during forced subtitles (titles, locations, character intros).

A side-by-side comparison with the same Viki episode captured by TunePat VideoGo All-In-One (which outputs a valid .vtt) confirms the missing data is present in the original Viki stream — it is being dropped by StreamFab’s subtitle pipeline.

Both files have identical cue count, identical numbering, identical timecodes — only text content differs.

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Steps to reproduce

Open StreamFab → Viki service.
Download any Viki episode containing forced/bracketed subtitles (most Chinese/Korean dramas: titles, locations, character intros — extremely common).
Open the produced _en.srt in any text editor.
Search for cues that contain only whitespace between consecutive timecodes — they correspond to [...] blocks in the original Viki WebVTT.

Confirmed on S01E01 of Zhan Zhao Adventures on Viki on 2026-05-23.

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Evidence — first 50 cues, StreamFab `.srt` vs reference `.vtt` (same episode)

Cue #	Timecode (start)	StreamFab content	Reference content	Issue
1	00:00:00,000	`Timing and Subtitles brought to you by The 7 Heroes and 5 Gallants Team @Viki.com`	`<i>Timing and Subtitles brought to you by The 7 Heroes and 5 Gallants Team @Viki.com</i>`	Italics `<i>` stripped
2	00:01:27,030	(empty, 3 spaces)	`<i>[Zhan Zhao Adventures]</i>`	Forced cue emptied (show title card)
3	00:01:36,000	(empty)	`<i>[Episode 1]</i>`	Forced cue emptied (episode title card)
4	00:01:53,000	(empty)	`<i>[North Slope Inn]</i>`	Forced cue emptied (location card)
17	00:04:20,327	(empty)	`<i>[Ge Yun Fei, Third Master of Shengyun Manor]</i>`	Forced cue emptied (character intro)
26	00:04:49,080	(empty)	`<i>[Tang Jiu Jue, Wuning Hall of the Tang Sect]</i>`	Forced cue emptied (character intro)

First 50 cues alone: 5 cues entirely emptied + italic tags lost on every italicized line.

The pattern is 100% consistent: every cue wrapped in [...] in the source stream becomes blank in the StreamFab output, while regular dialogue (plain text or plain text) is preserved (minus italic tags).

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Expected behaviour

Preserve the text of bracketed/italic forced cues (location signs, character intros, episode titles). They are part of the official Viki English subtitle track and are critical for viewer comprehension — they translate Chinese on-screen text the viewer cannot otherwise read.
Preserve ... HTML italic tags (SubRip .srt supports them natively).

If italics / HTML tags are intentionally normalized, the text between the tags must still survive the transform.

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Attachments

StreamFab.log (unedited)
Les aventures de Zhan Zhao_S01E01_episode 1_en.srt — StreamFab output (buggy)
Zhan Zhao Adventures - Episode 1 _ Rakuten Viki.English.vtt — reference capture, same Viki episode (correct)

A diff between the .srt and the .vtt immediately shows the missing content on the affected cues.

les-aventures-de-zhan-zhao-s01e01-episode-1-en.txt

38kB

zhan-zhao-adventures-episode-1-rakuten-vikienglish.txt