Optimize series and presentation unique key grouping to preserve sort order and reduce memory usage

Jellyfin.Server.Implementations/Item/BaseItemRepository.cs

@@ -890,17 +890,28 @@ public sealed class BaseItemRepository
     /// Applies series grouping at the database level using GROUP BY to avoid loading all episodes into memory.
     /// This is crucial for TV Shows performance - instead of loading 10,000 episodes and deduplicating in-memory,
     /// we group by SeriesPresentationUniqueKey at the database level and only load one episode per series.
+    /// IMPORTANT: Gets sorted IDs first to preserve sort order from the ORDER BY clause.
     /// </summary>
     private async Task<List<Guid>> ApplySeriesGroupingAtDatabaseLevel(IQueryable<BaseItemEntity> dbQuery, JellyfinDbContext context, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
-        // Get distinct series presentation keys along with one ID per series
+        // Get all IDs in sorted order FIRST (preserves the ORDER BY from ApplyOrder)
-        // This uses GROUP BY at the database level instead of in-memory DISTINCT
+        var sortedIds = await dbQuery
-        var groupedBySeriesIds = await dbQuery
+            .Select(e => new { e.Id, SeriesPresentationUniqueKey = e.TvExtras!.SeriesPresentationUniqueKey })
-            .GroupBy(e => e.TvExtras!.SeriesPresentationUniqueKey)
-            .Select(g => g.First().Id)
             .ToListAsync(cancellationToken)
             .ConfigureAwait(false);
 
+        // Deduplicate by SeriesPresentationUniqueKey while preserving the sorted order
+        var seenSeries = new HashSet<string>();
+        var groupedBySeriesIds = new List<Guid>();
+        
+        foreach (var item in sortedIds)
+        {
+            if (seenSeries.Add(item.SeriesPresentationUniqueKey ?? string.Empty))
+            {
+                groupedBySeriesIds.Add(item.Id);
+            }
+        }
+
         return groupedBySeriesIds;
     }
 
@@ -908,17 +919,28 @@ public sealed class BaseItemRepository
     /// Applies presentation unique key grouping at the database level using GROUP BY to avoid loading duplicate items into memory.
     /// This optimization applies to movies, music videos, and other media types that can have duplicate PresentationUniqueKey values.
     /// Instead of loading all items and deduplicating in-memory, we group by PresentationUniqueKey at the database level.
+    /// IMPORTANT: Gets sorted IDs first to preserve sort order from the ORDER BY clause.
     /// </summary>
     private async Task<List<Guid>> ApplyPresentationUniqueKeyGrouping(IQueryable<BaseItemEntity> dbQuery, JellyfinDbContext context, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
-        // Get distinct presentation keys along with one ID per unique key
+        // Get all IDs in sorted order FIRST (preserves the ORDER BY from ApplyOrder)
-        // This uses GROUP BY at the database level instead of in-memory DISTINCT
+        var sortedIds = await dbQuery
-        var groupedByPresentationKeyIds = await dbQuery
+            .Select(e => new { e.Id, e.PresentationUniqueKey })
-            .GroupBy(e => e.PresentationUniqueKey)
-            .Select(g => g.First().Id)
             .ToListAsync(cancellationToken)
             .ConfigureAwait(false);
 
+        // Deduplicate by PresentationUniqueKey while preserving the sorted order
+        var seenKeys = new HashSet<string>();
+        var groupedByPresentationKeyIds = new List<Guid>();
+        
+        foreach (var item in sortedIds)
+        {
+            if (seenKeys.Add(item.PresentationUniqueKey ?? string.Empty))
+            {
+                groupedByPresentationKeyIds.Add(item.Id);
+            }
+        }
+
         return groupedByPresentationKeyIds;
     }