epm
@68.42.x.x
| I work for comcast yup...it seems DNS is out yet again. I work in the call center servicing michigan, indiana and kansas. I honestly have no real information except there are 170 people in my queue and there's like 200 people in this call center. It almost feels like an attack or something cause it seems like the same time every night.
If you must call tonight, try not to be mean, Last night I had nothing but intentionally mean people that admitted to calling and just being mean. There's really nothing I can do so what's the point right? | |
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MDColson
join:2002-12-20
West Hartford, CT | Re: I work for comcast Understandable... How about you just post updates here as you get them?
MDColson
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»www.mdcolson.com | |
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jakoe420
join:2003-09-05
Knoxville, TN
clubs:
1 edit | man i feel for you...lol I would not want to be in your shoes right now
stick it out don't let them get to you
it's not your fault | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
| yeah, I've been using the DNS servers I saw on another thread here and they've been working so at least I have something of a fix for people. It seems like the entire country is messed up. The IVR on the phone is saying 4AM for an ETR but last night I noticed a lot of places started working around 11:30.
Uh oh, i'm getting the mean people calling now. | |
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somebodeez
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-24
here | Re: I work for comcast Good luck to you! | |
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CableTool
Poorly Representing MYSELF.
Premium
join:2004-11-12 | Re: I work for comcast Get off the internet and answer the phones! 
The only information we have recieved internally is that the DNS is down and there is no ETR. | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
| Re: I work for comcast HAHA.....no kidding right...still got 119 in queue...Calls have been taking a bit longer due to me giving out DNS IPs. They haven't given us much info either though....they finally posted the IVR on the phones though so maybe the queue will start to go down. | |
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| | | | lcplwan
join:2002-12-25
Sacramento, CA | Re: I work for comcast Hey is it possible for someone to write a letter and have tons of comcast customers sign and say we demand a refund?.. this is seriously stupid.. lucky that we can use other DNS servers... we should get like a free month or something.. | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
 from:
jkj860 
| Re: I work for comcast Well for one they usually only credit per 24 hour period. But if you want to be credited for the time you were down by all means have at it.
About $42.95 /month for CHSI and $3.00 /month modem rental gives you $45.95 a month for internet. That's a $1.48 a day and since the outage was for maybe 9 hours (7pm to 4AM) that's a whopping $0.56 for tonights outage. If you want to expell all that energy in a written petition go for it, you're certainly entitled to it, but I'm not sure it's worth it. | |
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| | | | | | luckylar
join:2002-01-29
Hixson, TN | Re: I work for comcast It may be only $.56 BUT if Comcast's 9 million customers demand that, it's NOW 4 1/2 MILLION DOLLARS!!!! | |
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| | | | | | | Confusatron
join:2002-01-03
Ypsilanti, MI
1 edit | Re: I work for comcast said by luckylar :It may be only $.56 BUT if Comcast's 9 million customers demand that, it's NOW 4 1/2 MILLION DOLLARS!!!! LOL!
I usually take the "my time is not worth the $1.50 or whatever they will give me", but I think I may call in on that idea alone
said by BudBob :If I ran a business like that I would not have too many customers after this. The key is to run the only business in town. That tends to limit customers' options... | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
| Re: I work for comcast I hope you're not bringing up the flimsy excuse that Comcast has a monopoly or something. in addition to comcast in this area people have a choice of Charter, Wide Open West, SBC Yahoo and about 4 other local high speed services....hardly a monopoly. | |
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imrf
Premium
join:2002-06-06
Utica, MI
 ·Comcast
·WOW Internet and C..
| Re: I work for comcast said by epm:
in addition to comcast in this area people have a choice of Charter, Wide Open West, SBC Yahoo and about 4 other local high speed services....hardly a monopoly.
Charter does not overlap in any Comcast market that I am aware of in MI. They are in Almont and north and to the west of them as well towards Flint. | |
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J1000
@comcast.net
| epm, while I'm not the kind of guy to call up and demand a credit, I do feel the need to point something out (just FYI I'm not irate at all here, just being philosophical).
When you pay a monthly fee for service you are not agreeing to outages. Regardless of what the fine print might say, customers expect constant access (and rightly so). If they were told ahead of time that service would be down at random once a week or so, they would probably just choose another provider who promised more OR they would expect to pay a lot less.
When service stops without notice that violates the customer's expectations and you can't break that down into a per-hour dollar amount just by dividing the monthly cost into minutes. Maybe Comcast isn't legally obligated to give a credit of any sort, but to rebuild goodwill with the customer they are going to have to do that and more. Even if I'm not the kind of guy who complains to the help desk I'm definitely going to remember outages the next time I choose a service provider. Heck that's why I'm not with SBC anymore! Generous credits are one of the only ways to restore the relationship with the customer. | |
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Blam
Penguin Power
Premium
join:2002-02-06
Philadelphia, PA
| Re: I work for comcast Sortof along that line of thought that you posted, a couple months ago, Verizon's connection went down in the local area here for a bit. It made the news and Verizon was out there with a P.R. person talking to the local news media and apologizing for the outage. I didn't even notice because I normally use my Comcast and the DSL is a backup. I never called in a problem because I wasn't really using it at the time and never knew until I heard it on the news. Then as a followup, after everything was fixed, I got a phone call from Verizon (they do this often) to again apologize for the outage, with a brief explanation on what happened. And in general, about once every couple months, I get a call from their customer service asking if my service (both phone and DSL) are satisfactory. This with me having their lowest tier DSL and basic phone, with a few add-ons. At this point, thank goodness I have the DSL because I am using it right now. I have yet to have 2 consecutive 24-hour days of service in the past 2 weeks with my Comcast (and this having nothing to do with the DNS problems of late but I do truly believe it is a routing issue related to the CRAN).
Here in Philly, the local Comcast used to be very involved in the community, etc. They recently had a ceremony for the ground-breaking on a new corporate HQ that will be in a 55-story skyscraper 2 blocks down from where their current skyscraper is. It just seems that they are now caught up in the same sort of thing that companies like Time-Warner-AOL or Viacom have gotten caught up in - eat or be eaten, where they buy up everything around them or get gobbled. And that has and will continue to impact on their service and just plain running of their businesses, IMHO. It's really a shame.  | |
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| | | | | | | jakoe420
join:2003-09-05
Knoxville, TN
clubs:
| said by J1000:
When you pay a monthly fee for service you are not agreeing to outages. Regardless of what the fine print might say, customers expect constant access (and rightly so). If they were told ahead of time that service would be down at random once a week or so, they would probably just choose another provider who promised more OR they would expect to pay a lot less. ugh
that is ignorant
if they were told ahead of time?? wtf | |
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skelet0r
Premium
join:2004-04-26
Florence, AL
| I am sorry, but you are incorrect sir, or maybe thats all that you can give, but when I called they gave me $20 dollars off next months bill. However, I was very nice, calm, and simply explained how I had been paying for the Gold Tier and did not appreciate multiple outages, whether I can fix the problem (change DNS servers) or not. I actually only asked for $10, but that sweet honey gave me $20 and gave me her extension so that I could reach her if I ever had a problem. Seemed like a real cool person. | |
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outraged at comcast
@comcast.net
| Re: I work for comcast quote:
I am sorry, but you are incorrect sir, or maybe thats all that you can give, but when I called they gave me $20 dollars off next months bill. However, I was very nice, calm, and simply explained how I had been paying for the Gold Tier and did not appreciate multiple outages, whether I can fix the problem (change DNS servers) or not. I actually only asked for $10, but that sweet honey gave me $20 and gave me her extension so that I could reach her if I ever had a problem. Seemed like a real cool person.
This has been my experience as well. I aplaud your ability to stay calm. I do most of the time. I am just really starting to feel that I have a second job which is keeping comcast honest. As a paying customer, I should not have to call up twice a month to see why their service is down. | |
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| | | | | | | Newegg
Supreme Ideology
join:2004-11-14
Atlanta, GA
1 edit | But some of the time talking to a tech is like talking to a brick wall and in the end they end up doing nothing when they promised you something just to get rid of you. So in the end you might not see $20 of your bill next month.
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30Mbit makes 6Mbit look like dialup around here. | |
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| | | | nosnam
join:2005-01-31
Donora, PA
| what a f'in loser, if your work for the company (like I do "for real") you would know it is against company policy to give out any dns or any other info that is not officially used or supported by comcast. you would know why we are going down all the time is because we shut down the old attbi dns servers and are only using 1 main and 1 secondary with backups in philly and denver that are not working. and since heavy usage is at night the dns servers crash, thus very slow speeds, we are not being attacked and get some more tape for you black lense glasses you geek | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
| Re: I work for comcast You can bite me dude, I can't help it if they don't tell us anything. And yeah, I gave out DNS servers to actually try to HELP people instead of telling them to suck it up.
And for the record I never said we were being attacked.
way to lash out like a child. You look really cool. | |
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Alt DNS BAD
@comcast.net | does anyone wonder if these attacks are for the purpose of phishing farms? .....kill the legitimate DNS's and force people to use compromised DNS's or...some attempt at cache poisoning? | |
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| | damox
Premium
join:2002-01-07
Olympia, WA | Re: I work for comcast No . . . actually that's been ruled out! | |
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| | jellyvista
join:2004-08-27
Westwood, MA
| epm,
I called to get my refund, but I tried to be very nice about it. Yes, for me, it might be some fraction of a dollar, but it is also the only way I really have of letting comcast know my displeasure. Unfortunately, it falls on the call center folks, who really shouldn't be taking the brunt of this. As part of my job, I've sat in with some call-center folks, and I only have admiration of the depth of knowledge for some, and the patience for others, of the folks who work there.
If Comcast had any kind of transparency, I'd be able to find out what was going wrong, and whether they were attempting to do anything about it. If Comcast simply owned up to what was going wrong, I'd be less irate. Companies are black boxes, however, and I can't imagine that any higher-up is going to listen to call center complaints. They've instructed the call-center folks I've talked to just to say "yup, there's a problem," which sounds like an implied "suck it up." So the bottom line, however small it may be for me, is the only avenue I have for communication into the company.
Good luck! | |
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05max99
@comcast.net | what are the alternate dns addresses, and how do you change them.(using a router) if it applies | |
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fast track
@adelphia.net | Comcast users reboot your pc and your internet will work.... | |
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fast track
@adelphia.net | Re: I work for comcast they have reverted to local DNS servers if you reboot your PC you can surf i did and i am now working | |
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imrf
Premium
join:2002-06-06
Utica, MI
·Comcast
·WOW Internet and C..
| Re: I work for comcast said by fast track:
they have reverted to local DNS servers if you reboot your PC you can surf i did and i am now working Yeah your DNS servers work, because you have Adelphia internet. This is a Comcast issue. | |
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Justin413
join:2003-07-22
Methuen, MA | why dont you guys just change the dns.. this will solve the problem, geez! | |
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Meaky
| I was wondering what was going on, for the first few times it did it I just laid back and played a game, I then got fed up and told someone to google it, thank god for changing DNS servers.  | |
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lolatepm
@wideopenwest.com | This is why comcast sucks so much. They have hundreds of calls and there call center people are surfing the internet and chillin out. OMG... | |
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See 9 replies to this post |
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BudBob
Premium
join:2003-01-01
Mckinney, TX
·RoadRunner Cable
| Being a Sr engineer I would sit my staff down and ask WTF is going on. This is supposed to be the easy part of the internet. Then after 3 nights of this the heads would start rolling and tools would be left at the front door.
The people that monitor the internet in forms like this will adjust (I haven't used Comcast/ATTBI/TCI DNS for 5 years) but the average user has no idea what is going on and that number would be in the 3 to 4 mil.
If I ran a business like that I would not have too many customers after this. | |
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oldTDNickell
Premium
join:2000-12-19
Federal Way, WA
| Re: I work for comcast said by BudBob :Being a Sr engineer I would sit my staff down and ask WTF is going on. This is supposed to be the easy part of the internet. Then after 3 nights of this the heads would start rolling and tools would be left at the front door. The people that monitor the internet in forms like this will adjust (I haven't used Comcast/ATTBI/TCI DNS for 5 years) but the average user has no idea what is going on and that number would be in the 3 to 4 mil. If I ran a business like that I would not have too many customers after this. I agree...There are many customers out their that don't have a clue why they can't get online,send e-mail,etc.etc.
Most of us just punch in some new DNS numbers and go on our way.:) | |
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jrx10
@comcast.net
| Re: I work for comcast reply to fast track
they have reverted to local DNS servers if you reboot your PC you can surf i did and i am now working
comcast's message while you're on hold is to unplug your modem & router, and recycle that. that didn't work for me, but manually configuring to another dns server did thursday and tuesday night. I just automatically--- manually configured when the problems started tonight, so I'm back up.
now if cutting power will automatically reset the dns server then good for them. the trouble is, most people probably think they're blowin' smoke, because they use that recycle power fix for everything. in any event, with 3 nights out of the last 6 with their dns down, they've got a heckuva customer service problem. | |
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pkarlos_76
join:2004-08-24
Edmonton, AB
| Re: I work for comcast said by jrx10: reply to fast track
they have reverted to local DNS servers if you reboot your PC you can surf i did and i am now working
comcast's message while you're on hold is to unplug your modem & router, and recycle that. that didn't work for me, but manually configuring to another dns server did thursday and tuesday night. I just automatically--- manually configured when the problems started tonight, so I'm back up. now if cutting power will automatically reset the dns server then good for them. the trouble is, most people probably think they're blowin' smoke, because they use that recycle power fix for everything. in any event, with 3 nights out of the last 6 with their dns down, they've got a heckuva customer service problem. FYI: Power cycle resolves 90% of our calls under normal circumstances. And most average people don't do a proper power cycle on their own. | |
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TScheisskopf
World News Trust
join:2005-02-13
Belvidere, NJ
 ·Sprint Broadband D..
| BudBob:
Yup. Yupyupyupyupyup. Sure looks like someone in a position of real technical responsibility does not know his or her gluteal protuberance from their elbow.
Or, they are getting DoS'ed mightily and either won't or have been told not to reveal the attack. There is that possibility.
Not the sort of thing our present government would like revealed, n'est ce pas? | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
| Truth of the matter is...EVERYONE has outages. Not just Comcast. Comcast gives credits based on 24 hour periods of downtime. Breaking it down hourly isn't something we do, as it's ridiculous. However when people call simply to yell at me and then demand a credit for the "time they were down" absolutely will I give them a hourly breakdown just to illustrate how ridiculous they're being and that usually gives them pause. People are always complaining about how expensive high speed internet is, but when you look at it as about $1.50 a day ($0.06 an hour) it doesn't seem so bad. It just really get's to me when people whine about thier internet needing to be there because they work from home or have a home business. It states clearly in the user agrement that the service is for entertainment. If you're using it for a business, there's a business service that runs on completely different servers. All the other cable companies have the same clause in their contract.
Things happen. Servers go down. It's a fact of life and no cable company (or DSL) is exempt from it happening | |
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See 10 replies to this post |
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otacon
join:2002-06-12
West Springfield, MA
| I used to be the guy that got the call in the call center also and it really doesn't do any good to be mean. The people answering the phones are the punching bags. Are people pissed off tonight? sure...I'm not too happy about changing my DNS again but don't call just to be a jerk. People who do that are just (donkey)holes in my book.
On another note, constant access is not possible or guaranteed if you read the TOS. Are there fail safe connections out there? of course....but not for ~$45 a month... | |
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bent
not broken
Premium
join:2004-10-04
Loveland, CO
clubs: | I sure wish I could bill these guys for the hours of lost productivity I have when my service goes out. Maybe they would take notice if we all sent them bills for our time.
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Pura Vida! | |
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See 12 replies to this post |
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jakoe420
join:2003-09-05
Knoxville, TN
clubs: | it only takes a half minute to change your DNS
bill that | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x | Re: I work for comcast $0.03.....cash only!:D | |
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| | jakoe420
join:2003-09-05
Knoxville, TN
clubs: | Re: I work for comcast check's in the mail, epm | |
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bent
not broken
Premium
join:2004-10-04
Loveland, CO
clubs: | you ever try to get fiber, business class DSL or even a T1 in an appartment?
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Pura Vida! | |
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otacon
join:2002-06-12
West Springfield, MA | Get a dedicated fiber line like my father's company has and you can bill them for productivity lost. Just going to cost you $2,000 a month unfortunately...lol | |
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mopower440
@comcast.net
| This DNS problem started monday!I was told by a comcast tech that it was my pc, I had a virus!I did not have a virus!The customer service rep gave me 3 days credit, wahooo I installed a new hard drive with new xp for 3 days credit! I should be working for comcast! | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x | Re: ComCrap Actually it started on the 7th. That day it went down and then it happened again yesterday and then again at the same time tonight. | |
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999Cain
| As a Comcast employee,--- are you allowed to tell a customer the DNS work around. I got the "savy" from a friend in "computerdom". Simple when you know how and why. | |
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pkarlos_76
join:2004-08-24
Edmonton, AB
| Re: I work for comcast said by 999Cain:
As a Comcast employee,--- are you allowed to tell a customer the DNS work around. I got the "savy" from a friend in "computerdom". Simple when you know how and why.
NO, we are not for legal reasons. | |
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epm
@68.42.x.x
| I can assure you I AM NOT scripted. I haven't been scripted since 2000 when I worked for Liberty Mutual.
Another thing that intrigues me is that I always here about these crazy long outages. I think in the past 2 years I've had Comcast at my house I've had one normal outage in the area that was cleared up within 24 hours, a scheduled maintenance outage and then these couple DNS issues. Fact is when a new cable company takes over an area, it's not like they lay new cable. All cable companies share the same lines on the outside and the servers and applications are still in use. Technically it's almost like they're independent of each other while still being under the same umbrella. Like in my city Comcast took over an AT&T area. They didn't lay new coax, they didn't change anything but the name. Over a year ago when I started working here half of the support apps said property of AT&T on them. Slowly they get switched out but it does take time.
I'm going home now...here's hoping I won't be back here tomorrow evening explaining the same worn out crap.
I hate it just as much as you guys...probably more. | |
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another_a2_ipcss
| I also work for the IPSCC in Michigan. Fortunantly, I am not there tonight for this outage, but I was there for the last two nights the DNS servers went down, and it was not pretty. It's tough to take calls with hundreds in the que, and tell them there is nothing that you can do. As an employee, it certainly is an embarrasing situation to know that the network engineers still have their jobs after these three major outages, and a lot rides on the TSS's shoulders for keeping the customer, trying to keep that customer from calling back, and informing them that it may be several hours for resolution. Whoever the engineers who had the bright idea of consolidating the DNS servers down to one national DNS was living in a dreamworld. All I can say for all the comcast customers out there who have gone through this, is that I feel for you. Treewalk software is your friend. »ntcanuck.com/.
Thanks for everyone's patience.
KG | |
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zach49127
join:2005-04-14
Berrien Springs, MI
| Yes, on the DNS.. I just talked with a rep (I won't give a name) and he was very nice and I just wanted to find out if that was the deal or if it was on my end and he admitted that Comcast was having an issue with the DNS server.. I just said Hey, not your fault and he thanked me for being so understanding.. I agree it's frustrating when your trying to get some stuff done but, there's nothing that I can do about it except deal with it. Hope it gets fixed quick.. | |
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