Jellyfin groups episdoes as "specials" even when <season> tag is present in the NFO

[Родион Панарин]

Both files have correct <episode>, <season> (filled with 1) and <anidbid> tags, and neither have <airsbefore...> tags or anything like that - yet when I open the wrongly-special-ed episode's metadata in the UI, Jellyfin lists "series number" as 0. Setting it to 1 for the episode fixes the issue, but since some of my anime r quite long (think 100+ eps), doing so manually would be troublesome. The NFO file remains the same before and after the change. Both episodes r in the same folder titled "Season 1", and the season.nfo has <title> set to "Season 1"; but Jellyfin displays some of the episodes not just as "Season 1", but also as a "Specials".
Am I doing something wrongly?

the NFO file of the wrongly "special" episode:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<episodedetails>
  <plot />
  <lockdata>false</lockdata>
  <dateadded>2024-11-12 14:46:25</dateadded>
  <title>In the Eternal Night</title>
  <year>2011</year>
  <runtime>24</runtime>
  <anidbid>7160</anidbid>
  <art>
    <poster>...</poster>
  </art>
  <showtitle>Legend of the Galactic Heroes</showtitle>
  <episode>1</episode>
  <season>1</season>
  <aired>2011-11-14</aired>
  <fileinfo>
    <streamdetails>
      <subtitle>
        <codec>ass</codec>
        <micodec>ass</micodec>
        <width>0</width>
        <height>0</height>
        <language>rus</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </subtitle>
      <video>
        <codec>h264</codec>
        <micodec>h264</micodec>
        <bitrate>2136409</bitrate>
        <width>960</width>
        <height>720</height>
        <aspect>4:3</aspect>
        <aspectratio>4:3</aspectratio>
        <framerate>29.97003</framerate>
        <language>jpn</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>True</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
        <duration>24</duration>
        <durationinseconds>1445</durationinseconds>
      </video>
      <audio>
        <codec>aac</codec>
        <micodec>aac</micodec>
        <bitrate>192000</bitrate>
        <language>jpn</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <channels>2</channels>
        <samplingrate>48000</samplingrate>
        <default>True</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </audio>
      <subtitle>
        <codec>ass</codec>
        <micodec>ass</micodec>
        <width>0</width>
        <height>0</height>
        <language>eng</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>True</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </subtitle>
    </streamdetails>
  </fileinfo>
</episodedetails>


the NFO of the one that is recognized correctly:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<episodedetails>
  <plot />
  <lockdata>false</lockdata>
  <dateadded>2024-11-12 14:46:26</dateadded>
  <title>Hoch Kaiserin!</title>
  <year>2011</year>
  <runtime>27</runtime>
  <anidbid>12120</anidbid>
  <art>
    <poster>...</poster>
  </art>
  <showtitle>Legend of the Galactic Heroes</showtitle>
  <episode>100</episode>
  <season>1</season>
  <aired>2011-11-14</aired>
  <fileinfo>
    <streamdetails>
      <subtitle>
        <codec>ass</codec>
        <micodec>ass</micodec>
        <width>0</width>
        <height>0</height>
        <language>rus</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>False</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </subtitle>
      <video>
        <codec>h264</codec>
        <micodec>h264</micodec>
        <bitrate>2655840</bitrate>
        <width>960</width>
        <height>720</height>
        <aspect>4:3</aspect>
        <aspectratio>4:3</aspectratio>
        <framerate>500</framerate>
        <language>jpn</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>True</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
        <duration>26</duration>
        <durationinseconds>1595</durationinseconds>
      </video>
      <audio>
        <codec>aac</codec>
        <micodec>aac</micodec>
        <bitrate>192000</bitrate>
        <language>jpn</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <channels>2</channels>
        <samplingrate>48000</samplingrate>
        <default>True</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </audio>
      <subtitle>
        <codec>ass</codec>
        <micodec>ass</micodec>
        <width>0</width>
        <height>0</height>
        <language>eng</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>True</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </subtitle>
    </streamdetails>
  </fileinfo>
</episodedetails>


[sjorge]

Somewhere in between 10.9.x and 10.10.x jellyfin started ignoring the season and episode numbers for me in episode nfo's. It always seems to grab the ones it parse (usually wrong in my case as I use adbren) from the filename.

It seems to go wrong on stuff with an episode number > 99 or when adbren tags specials as S1, S2, S3... they end up inside Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3 respectively. Like your case, the episode NFO has the correct info.

I haven't found it a fix yet

Edit: well removing the episode nfo and using jellyfin support naming of <show> - S1E100 - <title>.<ext> and <show> - S0E01 - <title>.<ext> ... seems to work. But that's not something I'm willing to do, I actually for the time being reverted back to 10.9.x

[TheDreadPirate]

I believe the issue regarding episode numbers greater than 100 can be worked around by having ALL episode numbers use the same number of digits.

So episode 1 would be "001", etc.