Subtitle load issues with ftp connection

[sigma2017]

Hello,
Long time ago you fixed the loading srt subtitle over samba conenction and since then works like a charm. Using Mixplorer as filemanager btw.
However, I just discovered that the connection is faster when using ftp (without TLS) and with Android versions 9,10,11,12 subtitle was loaded perfectly on ftp also.
Since 3 of my devices updated to Android 13, I am forced to connect to the server via samba in order to load the srt subtitle because via ftp not the case anymore. Doing this on 2 phones and a tablet. Same server, same setup, same vsftpd config, with Android 13 subtitle doesn't load anymore from ftp. As I mentioned, from samba is fine.
When you are watching from LAN a 4k movie with very high bitrates, speed is critical because sometimes you are on the max bandwidth limit and the difference between playing via ftp versus via samba can result in a pleasant experience versus a annoying one (movie sometimes buffering).

For sure is a justplayer issue because with MX Player the srt subtitles load automatically from the same vsftpd on my Android13 clients.
Since I discovered justplayer I constantly used it and still using it because is much ligher than MXplayer and besides the lack of extended subtitle options like MXplayer have I still preffer justplayer for the speed and simplicity, and ofc for DoVI.

Do you think that something can be done to repair this subtitle issue load via ftp connection on Android 13?

Thank in advance!

[moneytoo]

I installed MiXplorer_v6.58.5_B22090510.apk on Android 13 (Samsung S21 FE) and vsftpd 3.0.3-8 on Arch server and it worked fine. I opened file "ToS-4k-1920.mov" (direct link) and it loaded subtitle "ToS-4k-1920.en.srt".

The SMB performance on Android is indeed quite poor. (I want to map the protocols and speed differences in different clients on Android.) Most clients use SMB1 or SMB2 with often only single digit speeds (MB). On the other hand SMB3 can work quite fast and almost saturate some wifi speeds. If I remember correctly, Material Files uses SMB3.
I would personally recommend using WebDAV (with or without SSL). With WiFi 6, it runs for me at around 90 MB/s. Setting up can be also quite easy for example with rclone.

[sigma2017]

I've never used webdav and I don't know how to connect.
I have nginx also and I can connect to http://172.27.72.2/movies/ where "movies" is a symlink which points to movie folder.
I get response failure (405), don't know what to do. I will try with rclone as you suggested.
However, I had some misconfiguration related to passive ports on my vsftpd 3.0.2 and now seems to be fine but still no luck with srt on android 13 even with name.ro.srt. I am using Xiaomi Pad 5 tablet.
Thank you very much for your quick reply but unfortunately still not working with ftp from my side. I will stick to samba until I will figure how to set up the webdav server.
Thanks again, really appreciated!

[sigma2017]

After few lost hours trying to create a webdav vhost on existing nginx install where I compiled the module manually I gave up and put just a simple httpd on port 81 which comes by default with webdav support.
Works like a charm on Android13 as well, with subtitles and everything!
Looks to be even faster compared with ftp (no tls).
I will create a nginx proxy_pass vhost for this tcp 81 instance to be able to access the content from outside. I have https certificate for nginx which will be in front of it.
Since htpasswd works, is protected as well.

Honestly I don't really understand what this webdav module actually does when activate it on a http server, the idea is that without it, I couldn't create a webdav connection in Mixplorer (error 405).

Brilliant solution, everything just works and even faster than ftp.

I want to map the protocols and speed differences in different clients on Android.
This would be extremely useful as nobody else did it until now.

You may mark this issue as solved.
Thank you!!!