special episode not showing in "next up"

[TheDreadPirate]

update
if i enable the setting "Display specials within their series they aired in" then this special episode appears in the "next up", however that setting also means that the special is listed as an episode within season 18, which it isn't, it's a standalone special episode. it's still remains listed as an episode in the "special" season as well as being inclued within seaon 18.

it looks like that when "Display specials within their series they aired in" is disabled then the specials are not included in "next up".

I was just about to come in and say this.  I was going through comparing my test instance vs my main instance and noticed this difference in settings.

[chenks]

I was just about to come in and say this.  I was going through comparing my test instance vs my main instance and noticed this difference in settings.

is this a bug though?
i would expect any special episode to show up in "next up" regardless of whether it was displaying it as part of a season or not?

it's very rare for a "special" episode to be part of a main season, which is why they are in their own "specials" season.

[TheDreadPirate]

I don't think it is a bug. I'm assuming what you're describing was a design choice to make the specials functionality work with the existing queueing system. It allows specials with "airs before/after" to be queued appropriately, and specials without it to be watched whenever. Without that setting enabled, I don't believe any queueing of specials occurs regardless if they have "airs before/after" set. And that is how it is supposed to be.

[chenks]

I don't think it is a bug.  I'm assuming what you're describing was a design choice to make the specials functionality work with the existing queueing system.  It allows specials with "airs before/after" to be queued appropriately, and specials without it to be watched whenever.  Without that setting enabled, I don't believe any queueing of specials occurs regardless if they have "airs before/after" set.  And that is how it is supposed to be.

it's a poor design decision then and makes absolutely no sense.

enabling that setting, whilst allowing the special to appear in "next up" also, incorrectly, lists the episode inside a season that it doesn't belong to.
this result is the episode appearing "twice" within the tv show, once inside the "specials" season (which is correct), and once inside an actual season (which is incorrect).

in my specific example, with this setting enabled, i have season 0 epsiode 221 correctly appearing in the "specials" season but also appearing in "season 18" which i doesn't belong in, but the only way to get the episode to show up in "next up" is to enable that settings.

all the "next up" queue needs to do is check the air date of all the unwatched episodes after the most recent watched episode and display that, what season it is should be irrelevant.

it's maybe not common in the US, but in the UK it is and those "specials" episode often play an important role in the timeline of a TV show. you could have special episodes inbetween multiple seasons but they aren't specifically part of a season.

this is something that plex doesn't have an issue with.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

So my earlier statement on specials not queueing properly was an issue on my end. They are working fine as you have found out in terms of queueing.

all the "next up" queue needs to do is check the air date of all the unwatched episodes after the most recent watched episode and display that, what season it is should be irrelevant.

Jellyfin queues things by using the season and episode number. It never uses aired dates for queueing episodes while watching.

Using aired dates would be worse as this is reliant on metadata providers having the correct metadata. And what about for people that have episode metadata disabled? Jellyfin allows you to customize season and episode numbers. Having it go off of aired dates brings much more complexity than needed to sort episodes as they currently are.

it's a poor design decision then and makes absolutely no sense.

enabling that setting, whilst allowing the special to appear in "next up" also, incorrectly, lists the episode inside a season that it doesn't belong to.

this result is the episode appearing "twice" within the tv show, once inside the "specials" season (which is correct), and once inside an actual season (which is incorrect).

in my specific example, with this setting enabled, i have season 0 epsiode 221 correctly appearing in the "specials" season but also appearing in "season 18" which i doesn't belong in, but the only way to get the episode to show up in "next up" is to enable that settings.

it's maybe not common in the US, but in the UK it is and those "specials" episode often play an important role in the timeline of a TV show. you could have special episodes inbetween multiple seasons but they aren't specifically part of a season.

this is something that plex doesn't have an issue with.

I would argue that specials do belong within a season if they are needed to continue the story.

The setting only adds the specials that take place between some episodes and adds that to the counter of total episodes for that season view.

It's also more convenient being able to see a special takes place between some episodes instead of having to remember from your memory.

What would be nice is to have an option/toggle to not display them in seasons to satisfy your desire to keep your season view free of them. That way, both types of people can be satisfied.

You can submit a feature request for that here: https://features.jellyfin.org/