Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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phaded
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by phaded » Mon May 25, 2015 5:00 pm

Machinesworking wrote:Since I'm not experiencing problems I have no fucking idea which bugs are in the beta and which problems are in the current release version?
That's the point, if you're not affected, then this kinda doesn't pertain to you? I gave a list to work with earlier :roll:
Machinesworking wrote: I don't get why you have an issue with me pointing out that mixing beta issues and released version issues is a bad idea? Anytime Ableton gets people reporting on bugs that don't exist in a version that's extra time chasing ghosts for programmers, and hearsay is a huge problem. If you can't see why that's a problem then I'm sorry, but you're never going to be very happy with any software ever of any complexity.
For the record, I am NOT participating in the current BETA as I'm extremely busy with projects. I just don't have the expendable time at this stage of the game. I don't think the OP specifically said that he is EXCLUSIVELY using the Beta, which is where alot of confusion (I think) is stemming. My understanding/interpretation is that he is participating in the current Beta, as he has in the past.

Most importantly- the problems the OP listed in his post: YES, I 100% have seen each and every one of these problems in Live 9's STABLE releases, to this day. The code issues in that sense when talking Beta vs "Stable" are not mutually exclusive, or so it seems. Clarified?

I seem them every damn day I'm in the studio, several times over. The only thing that as brought an ounce of relief has been switching to 64 bit. But as I mentioned earlier in the thread- over a half-dozen crashes in yesterday alone. Lots of spinning wheels for no reason, long project loads, you name it. The only bug I did not experience yesterday was the 'No File ID'. We'll see about today. It's early still.

NOW I will say THAT PART- the sluggish, unstable behavior, from my current experience is EXCLUSIVE to Ableton. I can throw the effing kitchen sink at Reaper and Reason before they crack, period.
Machinesworking wrote: By all means rant about Live, but if all you're going to do is say "LIVE ARE UNSTABLE! IT DON"T MATTER IF BETA OR NOT", and I'm not using the beta on a stable system, you tell me nothing.
Well I wasn't really knocking on your door for tech support. I'm just echoing sentiments of the OP as well as other posters in this thread. Fuck if I expect you to fix anything. :lol:

Heck take a gander at the hot topics in the forum w/ most views and replies- what's the common theme? I'm making my voice heard and praying Ableton will be again something I look forward to using day to day. Someone using a professional DAW shouldn't have to adjust their workflow for fuckery nor budget time in the studio for mishaps.

This is NOT cheap software, especially when you start pairing it with their proprietary hardware. I expect it to perform up to it's pricetag, no less.

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musikmachine
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by musikmachine » Mon May 25, 2015 8:46 pm

I've just switched back to using 9.1.8 since yesterday and i've experienced 5 crashes since 9.22pm last night. Not doing anything special, just finishing a mix and setting up default template but could be due to the maschine 2.3 update.

I was experiencing crashes before, mainly due to Max which is why i switched to the beta cause the updates seemed to point to a more stable version with Max devices.

mholloway
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by mholloway » Tue May 26, 2015 4:02 am

Machinesworking wrote:I'm sorry, I just noticed that you're talking about the Beta Release 9.2.
Makes sense, because I don't find the current release version of 9.1 to be unstable.

The headline should be, "The Ableton Live beta release of 9.2 is an unreliable mess."
Not as dramatic of a headline for sure.

I've had these issues for months and months, as stated in my OP.

You can pretend that because you alone haven't found them in the version you are running, they don't exist, but meanwhile the rest of our experiences deserve to be talked about.
my industrial music made with Ableton Live (as DEAD WHEN I FOUND HER): https://deadwhenifoundher.bandcamp.com/
my dark jazz / noir music made with Ableton Live: https://michaelarthurholloway.bandcamp. ... guilt-noir

Machinesworking
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by Machinesworking » Tue May 26, 2015 7:26 am

mholloway wrote:
Machinesworking wrote:I'm sorry, I just noticed that you're talking about the Beta Release 9.2.
Makes sense, because I don't find the current release version of 9.1 to be unstable.

The headline should be, "The Ableton Live beta release of 9.2 is an unreliable mess."
Not as dramatic of a headline for sure.

I've had these issues for months and months, as stated in my OP.

You can pretend that because you alone haven't found them in the version you are running, they don't exist, but meanwhile the rest of our experiences deserve to be talked about.
I've never stated peoples issues don't exist, I'm just wary of using a beta as any indicator of stability.
Betas can and do add more issues at times, can we agree on that?

As an alpha tester and old school Live user you're aware of this:
Ableton are horrible at backwards compatibility, Live 9 files overwrite 8 files overwrote 7, 64 bit versions and 32 bit versions are not recommended to both be installed on your setup? <--Big WTF? moment there to me. So beta versions in my opinion are going to destabilize possibly, released versions.

Here's my point in as black and white as I can put it:

You say "Live has all the issues it had before the beta." Then I get it.
You say "live is a mess for months and months" it doesn't tell me anything. The beta has been out for months and months.

Unless you really need the beta I would at the very least try uninstalling all Live versions along with all files, permissions etc. and only install the current stable release. It's possible being an alpha tester that you and others doing all that work for free have been given the fun time party bonus of a hosed Live setup.
There has to be some reason some of us aren't experiencing these problems and believe me it isn't because I have clean set up. My guess is some beta corrupted your version of 9.1.8 the current release version of Suite.

Wouldn't it make sense to compare setups and figure out what's different that might be causing Live to be shit on your system VS mine? The only possible explanation is Live is badly interacting with some driver or plug in, or that Ableton themselves did it with bad code overwrites from betas that interact badly etc.

phaded
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by phaded » Tue May 26, 2015 1:32 pm

Machinesworking wrote: I've never stated peoples issues don't exist, I'm just wary of using a beta as any indicator of stability.
FFS man I'm not sure if one single soul has claimed that a beta is an indicator of anything but what Ableton is working on for their upcoming release. The only thing that you're accomplishing right now is that you're making valid points by other posters very murky by going around blowing you're effing Beta trumpet. Good show.

(side note, your internal Maschine might not be working.. fwiw) :lol:

Now since we sadly don't have an emoticon for this....

Image

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phaded
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by phaded » Tue May 26, 2015 1:49 pm

Machinesworking wrote:The only possible explanation is Live is badly interacting with some driver or plug in, or that Ableton themselves did it with bad code overwrites from betas that interact badly etc.
See, this is right where you are stuck in the mud too. Quit pretending like you have all the answers, b/c its nowhere near that cut and dry obviously. This is a code related issue with Ableton. You have no magic wand.

And yet again- LOOK at the forum topics dude. The issues laid out in this thread are far from isolated. Stuff a sock in it.

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Stromkraft
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by Stromkraft » Tue May 26, 2015 2:38 pm

Machinesworking wrote:64 bit versions and 32 bit versions are not recommended to both be installed on your setup? <--Big WTF? moment there to me. So beta versions in my opinion are going to destabilize possibly, released versions.
I have never experienced or heard about this. Where did you get this information?
Make some music!

H20nly
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by H20nly » Tue May 26, 2015 5:26 pm

^ I'm pretty sure Ableton themselves have said that.

This thread has been pretty peaceful and informative so far... Something Ableton can actually use. Before it descends completely into a slagging flame war... I think Macinesworking's point about previous versions hosing current versions is worth considering...

@ M. Holloway... Do you have a lot of previous revs installed? Beta or otherwise?
Since there are contributors here that have a success story with similar specs, maybe finding the difference is the key to moving forward. If there are prior revs on your system, maybe washing them out and/or renaming the install directories so you can get a seemingly clean install could help.

Especially M4L

phaded
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by phaded » Tue May 26, 2015 6:02 pm

H20nly wrote:^ I'm pretty sure Ableton themselves have said that.
Have you any idea how many different versions of Live that a dev for any DSP, be it Max or 3rd party, must have on their system? :lol:

The only problem in OSX-land is that you have to rename the install so they don't get overwritten. In Windows (at least last I used it- its been a few years) it just installs to a different directory. I've kept legacy installs in the past while making sure an upgrade is stable. And furthermore- never been a problem prior to Live 9, why would this be the root of problems that have been reported non-stop since Live 9 was released?

Lastly- I personally re-installed EVERYTHING at the top of the year on my system. It was overdue maintenance, but I wanted to see for myself if these issues in dealing with Ableton were due to a cranky, cluttered OS, or if it was Live itself that was at the heart of the instability. Well guess what? Fresh OS, same problems. I can't stress how little is on this box aside from Audio Apps. I've worked in IT, and as I said prior: its a bit odd to me that Ableton Apologists tend to assume that its always an issue with the end user.

How many people have to report the same effing bugs over and over between crashes, sluggish behaviour, and a poorly implemented browser before we can go 'hey! maybe it is Ableton!'

Also Ableton Apologists- have you used any other DAWs? Like, I've said several times that it's night and day when comparing Live vs other DAWs... whats the excuse for that?
H20nly wrote:I think Macinesworking's point about previous versions is worth considering...
Yes, worth considering if the OP was the only person suffering from the problems he listed in his initial post. Not only myself, but others have chimed in with similar sentiments. Also (and yet again repeating myself)- CHECK OUT THE HOT TOPICS ON THE FORUM. Most of the ones on the main page that are most viewed and have the most replies are users complaining about their Live experience. What do we make of that?
H20nly wrote:Since there are contributors here that have a success story with similar specs, maybe finding the difference is the key to moving forward. If there are prior revs on your system maybe washing them out and/or renaming the install directories so you can get a seemingly clean install could help.
Again- if this was isolated to the OP, sure. But its not.

Little more food for thought for Ableton Apologists

- If everything is roses, why do you think Ableton announced on Feb 25th that they were going to implement proper PDC and its almost June and that still hasn't come to fruition? If Live's code is so rock-solid, whyfor are they on 9.2b10?

- how can you even announce zero-latency automation like it's the newest hot feature with a straight face in 2015? or a freaking Tuner for that matter?

- WHY WHY WHY are things like LFOs, Env followers, ADSR generators not just native Live Devices? Convolution Verb as well for that matter. Lets just put aside the fact that its pretty ridiculous to have that as a 'carrot' to get users to upgrade to Suite or purchase Max. Considering the oft-reported bugginess of Max4live, doesn't this seem even more foolish in hindsight?? You look at the way the same things are elegantly implemented in other DAWs and you are just left asking 'why?'

QUIT drinking the kool-aid ppl. We, as a user base, deserve better than this.
Last edited by phaded on Tue May 26, 2015 6:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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phaded
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by phaded » Tue May 26, 2015 6:05 pm

dbl post

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mholloway
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by mholloway » Tue May 26, 2015 6:36 pm

H20nly wrote: @ M. Holloway... Do you have a lot of previous revs installed? Beta or otherwise?
Since there are contributors here that have a success story with similar specs, maybe finding the difference is the key to moving forward. If there are prior revs on your system, maybe washing them out and/or renaming the install directories so you can get a seemingly clean install could help.

Especially M4L
I do, yeah!

I will do some cleanup this week re: the old revs and see if anything changes. I'll post any results I find here.

-M
my industrial music made with Ableton Live (as DEAD WHEN I FOUND HER): https://deadwhenifoundher.bandcamp.com/
my dark jazz / noir music made with Ableton Live: https://michaelarthurholloway.bandcamp. ... guilt-noir

Stromkraft
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by Stromkraft » Tue May 26, 2015 6:41 pm

phaded wrote:Quit pretending like you have all the answers, b/c its nowhere near that cut and dry obviously. This is a code related issue with Ableton. You have no magic wand.
Nor do you.

As someone that have overcome stability issues, albeit likely for other reasons, I have to tell you quite often issues you have are not what they seem nor are the causes what you believe them to be necessarily. As always, you can apply analysis on the situation and do some tests on your setup to actually get somewhere.

Even if there is a clear problem as there indeed will be from time to time how are Ableton or any software developer supposed to fix issues they — or even other users — can't recreate? And if some of the more evasive issues can be determined to exist by multiple users, sharing more specific information on setup must be viewed as essential to find some procedures and/or setups that can cause the problem in question.

Of course, few of us wants to be beta testers as we just want to make music, but some do find that adding some time for identifying issues and making cases that can be recreated is a worthy investment, both for themselves and for the community.

There exists no DAW that has no issues whatsoever, no matter what you pretend. I know there are issues unique to Live and Ableton should indeed work hard to fix them. But having issues are nothing new under the sun.

The time-tested approaches many musicians and DJs I know have used for years to combat stability issues and other show-stoppers are simple but surprisingly effective:
  • Never assume things will just work. It's your machine. You're responsible for what you put on it.
  • Use a machine dedicated to music. Need to do work? Get another machine or boot from 2 partitions.
  • Test the hardware intially very intensively, do all basic stress tests including memory tests, load test and so on. Keep doing some tests regularly, like once a month or quarter
  • Keep the net turned off, especially wireless. Surf on your iPad or other machine (or reboot).
  • Inactivate system processes that are irrelevant to making music.
  • Backup the whole disk to a "bootable" disk image or bootable alternative HDs with some intervals so you always can go back to a stable setup quickly.
  • Do manual updates of the OS as well as the DAW and any third party plug-ins when possible. never auto update. Stay in control.
  • Only update one component at a time to verify system stability isn't affected
  • Try demos in an alternative setup, like when booted from another disk
  • When updating the audio interface, if possible, keep the old one for a few months so you can go back quickly should problem arise
  • Test new hardware purchases very carefully
  • Only make any changes after you've completed a current project and you can tolerate down time


Most of these ideas are from a very long period of people using Logic & Cubase on multiple OSes up until today, not Live only, but it's obvious how well this cautious approach works also in Live for those people that have abandoned for instance Logic for Live, as I have done. The people that have shared and communicated this methodology have invested thousands of hours each year in music making and thousands of dollars in gear (accumulated usually). They were inclined to have stability as one important features and they have worked very hard on getting all features they needed.

I'm suggesting anyone making music professionally will at some point need to use an approach similar to these. None of the above will shield you from bugs in your software, but chances are they will make them significantly more infrequent.

It's hell to fall out of this scheme and similar ones, sometimes seemingly for no good reason, but it's imperative that we, the Live community, apply some principles for how to best get music done instead of just whining over that stuff just doesn't work. If Live doesn't serve us we should move on to another platform that does. But every platform will have problems, some of which might be easier to live with. Or not.

What I'm suggesting is that those of us that haven't given up, refocus on identifying issues so that other users and in the end Ableton support can recreate them so that they can have a chance of getting fixed.

We could also let Ableton know that we rely on them identifying issues before they get to beta and that many of us would like to get better error and crash reports so that we can make decisions that may alleviate the issues we're having as well as increase the chances for these to get fixed.
Make some music!

phaded
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by phaded » Tue May 26, 2015 7:21 pm

Stromkraft wrote:Nor do you.
When did I say I did? :lol:
Stromkraft wrote:As someone that have overcome stability issues, albeit likely for other reasons, I have to tell you quite often issues you have are not what they seem nor are the causes what you believe them to be necessarily.
Good for you. Thank you for pointing out something very obvious to anyone that's done troubleshooting in their life. Golf clap.
Stromkraft wrote:Even if there is a clear problem as there indeed will be from time to time how are Ableton or any software developer supposed to fix issues they — or even other users — can't recreate?
Again since you are very dense on this point: If you can't recreate, then you're ok. This thread doesn't apply to you. But you're not telling me anything about:

a) why there are MANY more like me having the SAME issues, to the letter

b) why other DAWs do not suffer from the same issues... we are talking about the basics here: speed and reliability
Stromkraft wrote:There exists no DAW that has no issues whatsoever, no matter what you pretend. I know there are issues unique to Live and Ableton should indeed work hard to fix them. But having issues are nothing new under the sun.
Haven't made the claim that there is no DAW that has no issues whatsoever. This is not my first rodeo buddy. I get that there will always be features or issues specific to a DAW. Thanks for pointing out the obvious here again.

What I'm saying, over and over, is that THIS particular DAW suffers from critical issues that take away from workflow and productivity. I really don't think you've read the content of my posts in this thread, but this is good reason why I prefer to spend my time in the studio, and not on forums ;)
Stromkraft wrote:The time-tested approaches many musicians and DJs I know have used for years to combat stability issues and other show-stoppers are simple but surprisingly effective:
Again, not my first rodeo, and I can tell you flatly: you make way too many assumptions about who you're talking to right now. I wouldn't waste my breath if I hadn't already adopted good practices in my approach to how I set up my system, what software and hardware I use and how they interact. FOH with that.

And please don't do the 'my DJ friends bit'. Buys zero cred really, I would be much more convinced if you just cited documented sources. 'My DJ Friends' just makes me giggle.

Stromkraft wrote:It's hell to fall out of this scheme and similar ones, sometimes seemingly for no good reason, but it's imperative that we, the Live community, apply some principles for how to best get music done instead of just whining over that stuff just doesn't work.
Oh you can bet I've adopted some methods to get around Live's instability. My point is one should not have to pay a retail pricetag for a DAW that has the potential to shit out at any given moment throughout the day. It's on them to fix their software- not on us to work around the glaring bugs.
Stromkraft wrote:If Live doesn't serve us we should move on to another platform that does. But every platform will have problems, some of which might be easier to live with. Or not.
Yet again, for the dense: Moving on is fully on the table. I use 3 DAWs on a regular basis, and have experience in FL Studio and Logic. I'm waiting to see what happens with 9.2 honestly, because I AM A PAID USER. It would make sense for me to see if they finally get it right before jumping ship, no? But you can bet I'll be checking into a demo of Bitwig to see how it compares. The competition has caught up tremendously since I originally purchased Live. I would rather not deal with the learning curve, but that time invested, to me, is the same time lost on crashes and waiting for project loads. Pretty well cancels out.

So you know... I don't need a push out the door ;)
Stromkraft wrote:What I'm suggesting is that those of us that haven't given up, refocus on identifying issues so that other users and in the end Ableton support can recreate them so that they can have a chance of getting fixed.

We could also let Ableton know that we rely on them identifying issues before they get to beta and that many of us would like to get better error and crash reports so that we can make decisions that may alleviate the issues we're having as well as increase the chances for these to get fixed.
Oh I'd be all for a Kumbaya lets-do-it-together attitude. But its glaringly obvious that the people running Ableton do not have much interest in open, transparent communication with the user base. There's is not even a bloodly link to this forum off their website now is there?

In fact the only support rep that chimed in on this thread is one looking to sweep it under the rug with private email requests. He certainly wasn't here to acknowledge our frustration. He did not suggest that the team has made note of the contents of many of these threads, and that they would take those issues to task to at least see if there was any merit. Hell, he didn't even defend the stability of the product.

With a closed-source piece of software there is only so much 'the community' can do. It would be refereshing at some point if the dev team at Ableton would put out the fire and own these issues until the most of the bugs are truly knocked out.

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bwax
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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by bwax » Tue May 26, 2015 7:58 pm

phaded wrote:
But its glaringly obvious that the people running Ableton do not have much interest in open, transparent communication with the user base. There's is not even a bloodly link to this forum off their website now is there?

In fact the only support rep that chimed in on this thread is one looking to sweep it under the rug with private email requests. He certainly wasn't here to acknowledge our frustration. He did not suggest that the team has made note of the contents of many of these threads, and that they would take those issues to task to at least see if there was any merit. Hell, he didn't even defend the stability of the product.

With a closed-source piece of software there is only so much 'the community' can do. It would be refereshing at some point if the dev team at Ableton would put out the fire and own these issues until the most of the bugs are truly knocked out.
This is the part I most strongly agree with.

I could forgive a lot of bugs, poor coding, and instability, if Ableton simply acknowledged what is going on and reassured us they are making efforts to fix it.

Maybe it's time for another one of these letters from Gerhard Behles?

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/12/a ... or-live-8/

The article ends with this relevant quote from the author, Peter Kirn:

"I should hasten to add, as I realized this post could be misread — talking about and fixing bugs is a good thing, but having bugs is not. Ableton, as any music developer, depends on the goodwill and trust of its users. If in fact bugs have made current Live versions less stable, or have adversely impacted the perception of Live, that leaves the ball in Ableton’s court to resolve."

So, all that happened in 2009. It's 2015, and here we are again. I suspect a great deal of users are experiencing major issues with Ableton Live. Out of all the audio, graphics, and video software I use, only Ableton Live is an "unreliable mess." Why? Stop blaming the user. Stop putting the burden on the user. This is commercial software from a company that presumably wants repeat customers and a future. If Ableton knows the answer to such issues, release a patch, release an announcement, tell us to go away, something!

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Re: Ableton Live has become an unreliable mess.

Post by H20nly » Tue May 26, 2015 8:59 pm

phaded wrote:
H20nly wrote:^ I'm pretty sure Ableton themselves have said that.
Have you any idea how many different versions of Live that a dev for any DSP, be it Max or 3rd party, must have on their system? :lol:

The only problem in OSX-land is that you have to rename the install so they don't get overwritten. In Windows (at least last I used it- its been a few years) it just installs to a different directory. I've kept legacy installs in the past while making sure an upgrade is stable. And furthermore- never been a problem prior to Live 9, why would this be the root of problems that have been reported non-stop since Live 9 was released?
The Devs who's systems you're so intimate with may have final versions installed (on one drive or another), but M. Holloway has multiple beta and alpha versions installed on his, hence the comment that I directed at him. I would tell you that this is different, but you're such an expert on other people's systems and code, I'm surprised you haven't resolved this for Ableton yet all on your own... so don't let me distract your rant with my rationale and empathy for the OP.



For your reading enjoyment http://www.ableton.com/en/help/article/ ... ths-facts/

tldr version;
Can I install the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Live at the same time?

It is possible and there are no technical issues to be expected by having different Live versions installed at the same time, but to keep things simple, we don't recommend such a setup. Please note that you will need to manually rename the application after the first installation (Mac) or choose a different installation folder (PC).
I'm sure the plugin Devs wrote their code to deal with application files in renamed folders, right?

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