Common Subtitle Formatting Errors

These are the errors that most often cause players to reject an SRT file, or to display subtitles incorrectly.

Wrong millisecond separator

00:00:03.700 --> 00:00:06.000   ✗
00:00:03,700 --> 00:00:06,000   ✓

Missing blank line between cues

Without a blank line, the next cue's number and timing are read as subtitle text.

Numbering errors

Duplicate, skipped or out-of-sequence numbers. Most players ignore numbers, but strict validators and some platforms reject the file.

End before start

00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:08,000   ✗

Overlapping cues

A cue starts before the previous one ends. Some players show both; others hide one. Occasionally overlap is intentional (two speakers), but usually it is an error.

Empty cues

A number and timing line with no text. Often left behind after deleting text in an editor.

Out-of-order cues

A cue starts earlier than the one before it — common after copying and pasting sections.

Encoding problems

Accented characters appearing as é or � indicate the file isn't UTF-8 or was decoded with the wrong encoding.

Overlong lines

Not a structural error, but lines over roughly 42 characters can wrap unpredictably or run off-screen on small displays.

You can detect most of these instantly by pasting your file into the "Paste / validate SRT" tab of our SRT tool.