[wcndave]

I have seen loads of threads about this, normally with @Karellen answering.
Special episodes that do or don't appear in the seasons they belong to.
That is actually working fine for me, but I have another question related to special seasons that is possibly related...

I understand that the displayseason and displayepisode fields in the nfo control this.
I understand that there's a config field in most skins saying "show specials as a season".

Having set all that up, and checked the meta data in the nfo files, I have one show where the special season appears first in the list of seasons, and one where it appears last...
I cannot work out why.
As I have "go to first unwatched" switched on, I want to see specials last.  Otherwise, I have to mark as completed, and then they don't play when their time comes!
I also want to see them in the season they belong to in most cases, which works perfectly as described on the tin.

Anyone have any insight on what determines whether the special season is first or last?

[Karellen]

I understand that there's a config field in most skins saying "show specials as a season".

I don't recall seeing that. Which skin and where?

I have one show where the special season appears first in the list of seasons, and one where it appears last.

No idea why that would be. I thought Specials was always listed first as S00 comes before S01. Which tv shows?
Have you set the setting "Include "All Seasons" and "Specials" to Neither?

I don't use Specials. I always insert the "specials" episode directly into the Season where I think it belongs which of course changes the numbering of the episodes to no longer match the listing at TMDB. But that is ok because once I create my nfo files I don't need to ever rescrape.
https://kodi.wiki/view/Convert_movie_to_...e_Episodes

[wcndave]

I understand that there's a config field in most skins saying "show specials as a season".

I don't recall seeing that. Which skin and where?

I actually mean the one you mention below, I have include set to just "Specials"

I have one show where the special season appears first in the list of seasons, and one where it appears last.

No idea why that would be. I thought Specials was always listed first as S00 comes before S01. Which tv shows?
Have you set the setting "Include "All Seasons" and "Specials" to Neither?

I don't use Specials. I always insert the "specials" episode directly into the Season where I think it belongs which of course changes the numbering of the episodes to no longer match the listing at TMDB. But that is ok because once I create my nfo files I don't need to ever rescrape.
https://kodi.wiki/view/Convert_movie_to_...e_Episodes

They seemed to always appear at the end for me, which made sense.

I think with some shows like Only Fools & Horses, where the last 10 years or more were only specials, it's nicer to also have specials in a separate season, and it normally just works.

It seems to be only one show that's not working, so there's limited impact, although it's the one the family is currently consuming.
Here are some screenshots, ending with the one not working.

[wcndave]

Sorry, just realised that the setting "include "all season" and "specials"" is actually a sub-menu of "select first unwatched tv show season/episode"
Therefore has nothing to do with whether specials are included in the structure... where is the setting you're referring to, was it a different one?

[wcndave]

A further update.  It doesn't matter whether specials appear at the end or the start of the season list, as the end behaviour is the same.
If you have select next episode automatically on, with include specials off, (neither), then you will skip these episodes.
If you have select next episode automatically on, with include specials on, it always highlights the specials season first, and will still skip these episodes when watching the actual season.
If you have select next episode automatically off, then the season is marked as completed when the last main episode is watched, and you end up skipping the specials...

So given all that, I decided to try @Karellen idea - as much as I don't like having data out of sync, because one day I will want to re-scrape, or update, or something, a Kodi integration with online db will not work... - it seems the only option that will work.
So I changed all the special episodes to be in the season they are in.
Then re-write nfo, and then clean database, update, clean again.

Nothing has changed... all the episodes still appear under the specials.

So I figure the file name is still used in addition to meta data, so I changed one file from S00E01 to S03E40 and clean/update, and it works.
So, I learned that the file naming is still important even when it's a db using meta data from the nfo file.

Finally, when I restarted Kodi, it wrote OUT a S00E01.nfo file, like it saw that file was now missing, and decided to put it back again, even after I'd done a clean that removed the entry from DB... I don't know why!

It would of course be easier to just do rip/scrape/update and have "next episode" just work, this makes adding new media that much more tedious, but it's what works for now...

[Karellen]

was it a different one?

No. That is what I was referring to. It is meant to ignore Specials when selecting first unwatched

They seemed to always appear at the end for me

Because I don't use Specials at all, I am not familiar with where they are meant to be displayed. Maybe its a skin issue? I don't know. Try with the default Estuary skin.

it always highlights the specials season first

To me that makes sense, because S00 comes before S01

So, I learned that the file naming is still important even when it's a db using meta data from the nfo file.

Yes, data inside the nfo is irrelevant for episode numbering. That's is why I noted in the wiki page the SxxEyy comment, and why there is no mention of editing nfo files.

Finally, when I restarted Kodi, it wrote OUT a S00E01.nfo file, like it saw that file was now missing, and decided to put it back again

Kodi won't do that. That is some addon or other software that is doing that.

[wcndave]

it always highlights the specials season first

To me that makes sense, because S00 comes before S01

I guess it would be nice/ideal, that when one has specified a display order, that "next unwatched" would take that into account.
As it stands, the only way to watch episodes in the right order, is to rename files so they differ from online database, and that's a) work, and b) it's generally preferable to keep data stored in a system agnostic way.

However I'm sure there's plenty of higher priorities on the roadmap!

Thanks again for the support - amazing work going on here.