Loads of problems with Jellyfin

So I've been trying to use Jellyfin for a long, LONG time now, and I've never really been able to use it remotely reliable.

I can go on for a long time about all the problems I've faced, lets just say that after years I can still not use it to watch something with the family because there is always something not working, I could start about hardware decoding having worked for a while and then suddenly without explanation no longer working, but lets start with subtitles...

I just want to have subtitles actually load without having to sacrifice a goat to whatever god is out there to have subtitles work. What is the problem that subtitles just 99% of the time don't work?

Worse, sometimes they work while watching a show, and a jellyfin update comes by and, you guessed it, subtitles no longer work for that show, even though they work for some other movies, sometimes...

I am a software engineer, I do loads of devops, I can find my way around, but jellyfin is just... I dunno what to do anymore. Is there a reliable alternative, perhaps, that actually just works?

I've long given up on the dream that I could have something similar to netflix for all my movies and shows that aren't on netflix, where I can scrub with images, for example, I just want to be able to watch a show with the family with subtitles without fiddling for 30 minutes to try and get it to work.

Current setup is google-tv with 0.17.9 client, and the latest docker server. Shows seem to have okay subtitles on web client, but on google-tv, every time I select a subtitle, I get a "subtitles loading" message, and then 10-20 seconds later a "failed to load subtitles" message.

Anyone?