New receiver and subwoofer sometimes not receiving signal

[PCFan]

I figured out how to get the subwoofer to kick in in Dolby 2.0 material. I did a factory reset and it ran Dolby 2.0 material in PII mode and the subwoofer kicked in. I also got it to work by using Stereo mode for Dolby 2.0 material. However in Direct mode the subwoofer doesn't kick in for Dolby 2.0 material or while playing a music CD. I'd rather have the receiver not add processing to the audio and that's why I would rather be in Direct mode for everything so everything can run in the correct format but the subwoofer doesn't kick in for Dolby 2.0 and music CD's in Direct mode. Is stereo mode downmixing Dolby 2.0 material? Also isn't the purpose of a subwoofer to handle the bass, regardless of material has an LFE channel or not and subwoofer compensate for speakers with weak bass?