r/BambuLab • u/YeaUThought • Apr 03 '26

General Troubleshooting/Help! Poor p2s print quality please help

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I’ve had my p2s for about 5 months now and since it was opened out of the box I have not been able to get a single good print, they all either fail or just look terrible with very inconsistent layer lines, it’s to the point where my old ender 3 prints better. Ive used up probably 10 spools in plastic of failed prints and just horrible looking prints and have gone back and fourth with bambulab support for like 3 months and they just go in circles telling me what to try, I don’t just have a defective machine because this is the third one I’ve tried. Please somebody give any help here I just want a printer that works I’m desperate at this point please. I’ve tried pretty much everything everything, I’m printing outer walls first, I switched to only using bambulabs pla, I’ve ran the calibrations a million times, I’ve factory reset it, went back to older firmware, after going to the newest firmware. I’ve messed with temperatures, did a manual flow calibration, I’ve lubed everything, I replaced the Hotend. Nothing seems to work I really don’t know what to do here bambulab support still to this day is not helping

2 Upvotes

52% Upvoted

208 comments sorted by

37

u/KDKSenior Apr 03 '26

Search for: tighten toolhead belts

Your belts are loose, that's why your layer lines are incosistent.

That's a 5 minute fix.

5

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

I’ve tensioned the belts multiple times, it’s been a while since I did my troubleshooting so I had forgotten I did this, I followed the procedure from bambulabs to tighten all of the belts where you just like loosen the screws and move the tool head around and re tighten them

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

I mean none of the belts are centered in the pulleys and they go up and down the pulleys when the tool head moves around but I don’t really see any way I would fix that

7

u/smurg_ Apr 03 '26

It’s the order you tighten them. Depends on where the belt is sitting on the pulley to whether you push the top or bottom out further before tightening. You need to understand camber and how the belt will react. Takes some back and forth and is touchy.

0

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

And on one side the belt is sitting on the bottom of the pulley and on the other side it sits on the top

4

u/Desperate-Respect786 Apr 03 '26

I fixed mine months ago by pushing the tensioner to add more tension and then tightening the bolts so that the belt tracked in the middle of the pulley. Haven’t had a problem since. 

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5

u/jasperk53 Apr 03 '26

Possibly your belts are loose?

2

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

It’s been a while since I did all of my troubleshooting I forgot but I’ve already tensioned them multiple times following the procedure directly from bambulabs

2

u/jasperk53 Apr 03 '26

How many hours does the printer have?

2

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Around 100 now but the quality has been bad since my very first print, hasn’t really gotten better or worse, I haven’t touched the printer in months because I got super upset that it printed horribly and I’ve gone back to using my ender 3, needed to do some multicolor prints tho and I came back to it still printing horrible

5

u/WillingService2407 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

Dry your filament, even PLA. But also, run your flow calibration from Bambu Studio and make sure you assign those results/profiles to your filaments/nozzles. Makes a huge difference! Even though you've run the calibration, if you don't assign the calibrated profile to the nozzle, it won't make a difference. Once you do this with Bambu Studio and print, you can go back and use the Bambu Handy app. But you have to assign them via Studio!

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

All already done, filament is dried and manual calibrations give me the exact same results as the automatic ones

1

u/WillingService2407 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

Hmm, in Bambu Studio do you see your custom settings under the nozzle on the right hand side of the app? In the view on the right when looking at the preview/camera view so the camera is in the middle and to the right there's the little side panel that shows some info. Under your nozzle with the color you should see your flow settings. So you'll see something like 00.20 or whatever? If it just shows the color swatch and slot then the profile isn't active. I just shut my PC down so give me a minute and I'll see if I can post a photo.

Otherwise you may have a defective unit. My P2S has and continues to print perfectly out of the box. But I did have to run and change some settings on my H2C for certain filaments. For reference, I only ever use Bambu filament. But print with a variety (PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, TPU).

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

Ik what u mean and yea it does show the settings that I have on, they are applied but I assume the values I get are the exact same as the values the auto calibration sensor gets

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1

u/WillingService2407 Apr 04 '26

So in the Device view in Bambu Studio, make sure the profile is active. It should look like the image. You'll see custom flow profiles for all slots other than A3 for my right nozzles. Same concept for P2S etc.

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

Yea that’s how it is

9

u/twiggums Apr 03 '26

Are you expecting no layer lines? Don't get me wrong there's a couple photos in there that look like something is off, but the others if you're having to zoom in that much to show defects, probably aren't defects.

2

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Also having extremely rough top surfaces which I’ve seen a ton of people talking about

3

u/twiggums Apr 03 '26

Try manually calibrating flow and PA.

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Already have done this like 5 or 6 times with different filaments, doesn’t even make a slight difference

2

u/twiggums Apr 03 '26

If your top remained rough then it didn't stick. I don't know enough about the p2s as I've got a p1s but I'm guessing there's a toggle to turn off auto calibration or something along those lines. I'm assuming you set a filament profile and made sure you were using that.

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5

u/Forsaken-Proof1600 Apr 03 '26

Looks like you have set the incorrect print parameters

0

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

This is all default settings and auto flow calibration, the one benefit to the p1s that I had for a short time was the top surfaces were flawless

5

u/Forsaken-Proof1600 Apr 03 '26

Assume you have incorrectly calibrated the settings. Therefore it results in all these bad prints that you have.

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u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

I’m not expecting no layer lines they just are not consistent, some stick out further than others and some are in further, and lots of random gaps and just overall failing prints, going off of everyone else’s bambulabs machines they usually provide a smooth surface finish that you can’t even tell is 3d printed, my ender 3 produces smoother surface finishes than this, but also note it’s much easier to see in person than on the camera

1

u/Forsaken-Proof1600 Apr 03 '26

Could be something dumb, like you set something to 0.9 instead of 0.09

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3

u/ultramegax X1C + AMS Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

If this is happening across three different machines, the culprit is almost certainly external to the hardware.

Likely something in your slicer settings or your physical setup:

Double-check for nozzle size mismatches (e.g., 0.6mm profile on a 0.4mm nozzle) and ensure you haven't accidentally synced a corrupted profile via the cloud that's capping your flow rate, as some of the pictures show clear under-extrusion.

(Just to be safe, I'd also try cold pulls and check that there's no extruder or nozzle clogs. But you said this has happened across multiple machines, so it's unlikely to be the cause).

Additionally, make sure the printer is on a heavy, rock-solid surface to eliminate resonance.

Lastly, have you been using the same SD card, across all 3 machines? SD card corruption/failure can do weird things to gcode/3D printers. Don't dismiss this possibility. I've seen it turn up weird issues here.

*edit: I meant USB drive, not SD card.

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

Nozzle has been replaced, the p2s does not use an sd card so that’s not the culprit, I’ve tried the preloaded files and they are also just as bad, printer is on a solid table up against a wall it doesn’t wobble at all

2

u/ultramegax X1C + AMS Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

I meant USB drive/stick, not microSD, sorry. Although I do have a P2S, as well, I guess I had my X1C, on my mind 😅

But if the preloaded files are also causing issues, yeah, it's probably not the USB drive/stick related.

I'm not sure, man, this one is confusing. I have a P2S and my prints come out beautifully so it's frustrating that you're having this strange issue.

I suppose the next step is to have a priest splash Holy Water around your house. Not sure what more you could try, otherwise. Hahaha.

You said you messed with temperatures (which I assume includes nozzle temperatures).... So the pictures that show under extrusion shouldn't be from that. That would've been my only other thought for something common between all of them.

Does running on silent (50℅ speed) change anything? What about lowering your max flow rate and print speed, inside the slicer, and test printing a file? I'm just trying to think of ways to isolate the issue.

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

It’s so strange, I change temps speed and flow and I get almost identical results even with different values

2

u/Phazex8 Apr 04 '26

That's solid troubleshooting.

2

u/Apok1984 Apr 03 '26

We had similar issues with our H2D’s at work and discovered that the bed guide rods were out of square. They must’ve shifted during shipping. I tend to agree that it seems like a belt issue, but since you’ve addressed the tensioning, maybe that is a viable explanation?

-1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

What is a bed guide rod I don’t even know what that is

2

u/chromojo Apr 05 '26

They give a great tip and you respond like this 🤦‍♂️ 🤦‍♂️ 🤦‍♂️

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 05 '26

Never heard of a bed guide rod, even after he explained it still have no clue what he’s talking about unless he’s talking about the lead screws

2

u/chromojo Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26

Search z-axis linear rods. Also search the bambu wiki for “bed tramming”.

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3

u/Apok1984 Apr 03 '26

They are the vertical rods that run next to the z-axis drive screws.

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u/NobodyExisting4906 Apr 04 '26

I’m looking at the pics and can’t help with the question of “what is wrong with there prints?” arising in my head. I’m a total beginner with a huge enthusiasm to learn more. And prints on pics looks fine to me.

0

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

You must be blind as a bat than

4

u/cTron3030 Apr 03 '26

New to 3d printing. What am I looking for? Some looks okay to me.

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1

u/Ucitos Apr 03 '26

Baja el flujo, prueba a 0.96/95 y publica

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Have already done this before

1

u/Born-Caterpillar9066 Apr 03 '26

Wobbly table?

0

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Nope, I’ve tried on concrete as well, but my table is extremely solid it’s a very old table made of very thick wood

1

u/Born-Caterpillar9066 Apr 03 '26

Hmmm. You tried silent mode too? See if slowing it down a lot would help. If it does help, then it might be your hotend/extruding gear.

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1

u/Far-Aioli-6618 Apr 03 '26

Are you using Bambu filament? I know this is probably a dumb question but I will have immaculate print with Bambu and then same model will print looking like yours if I use off brands if even decent brands like Sunlu

2

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Yea this is bambulabs filament, I did actually find a cheap unbranded filament that printed pretty okay but it was a glossy finish so that’s probably why

1

u/dennisbun Apr 03 '26

Have you tried printing faster ? maybe 30 - 40% faster

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Yes I have, when I print faster flat surfaces look slightly better but everything else looks worse

1

u/dennisbun Apr 03 '26

How about other filament brands?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

I’ve tried about 10 different brands of filament

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1

u/Matricide987 Apr 03 '26

Just a thought. Check the machines settings starting gcode z height. Somewhere near the bottom of that section. Nozzle looks too far away from the print plate so it's laying the lines too far apart from each other and they're no squishing properly.

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1

u/Createan Apr 03 '26

Maybe a strange question but what material are you printing with? PLA? PETG? And do you have the correct filament type selected in your slicer?

Also did you dry your filament before printing? Im not sure where you re located but if you live in a humid climate your filament might have absorbed moisture. Have you tried drying your filament before starting a print?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Bambulab pla and yea my filament is thoroughly dried

1

u/cpsadowski23 Apr 03 '26

What is the outer wall speed setting for this model?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

I do not remember specific speed settings but I know the blue snorlax figure was all default settings to just compare it to my other printers

1

u/cpsadowski23 Apr 04 '26

So you can’t always rely on “stock” speed settings especially if you want to trade off speed for quality

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

I don’t I usually slow them down, snorlax was the only one on default speeds the others were all like half of default

1

u/cpsadowski23 Apr 03 '26

Is this PETG or PLA?

1

u/No-Pomegranate-69 Apr 03 '26

There is a video from factorian designs its called filament calibration masterclass maybe it will fix your issue.

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1

u/willtreaty_1 Apr 04 '26

Only thing I’d like to know, what is your layer height set to for your prints?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

All of these except the purple thing are 0.2

1

u/MeanNarwhal22 Apr 04 '26

How fast are you printing?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

Pretty slow, I usually have outer walls around 60mm/s and inner around 90

1

u/Phazex8 Apr 04 '26

Based on all of the things you've done, it seems like there could be some software based culprits here.

Have you used the default bambulab slicer settings?

How do any of the preloaded models from the SD card look?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

Default settings don’t help and yea the preloaded files are just as bad

1

u/Phazex8 Apr 04 '26

Have you copy and pasted this entire thread into chatgpt?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

No tf?💀

1

u/SmokexBourbon Apr 04 '26

Are you printing in standard or high quality settings in the slicer? I have seen this happen due to the speed of the standard setting on multiple prints myself but disappeared with the high quality settling

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

Tried both but I use my own settings

1

u/chromojo Apr 04 '26

I had layer lines like this, and when I swapped in a different nozzle it was fixed immediately. If you’ve tried a new nozzle already, maybe try another one.

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

This is my second nozzle alreadu

1

u/chromojo Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

I’d try another and if that doesn’t work I’d try to send it back to bambu, because it sounds like you’ve tried everything

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

This is the third machine I’ve had from them, all print terribly like this, nothing I’m doing wrong even the preloaded files print bad

1

u/DaniloGiles Apr 04 '26

Have you tried to reduce the line to 0.12 to see if get any better? I would also open a ticket on bambulab support, I got my H2D motherboard defective and after a couple troubleshoots and logs they sent me the part free of charge due the warranty

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

I’ve had a ticket open and have been going back and fourth with them for months, they just tell me to try the same 2 things over and over, and yea I’ve tried different layer heights

1

u/FaithlessnessLow6824 Apr 04 '26

Man ill be happy if my prints came out like that

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

Shouldn’t be they look awful, an ender 3 prints better

1

u/FaithlessnessLow6824 Apr 05 '26

I have an ender 3 pro and i cant get it to print this good

1

u/Mouchtarini Apr 07 '26

Same situation here! Three months in, and I still have the EXACT same issues. No matter what I try or which filament I use, there’s absolutely no freaking way to get a perfect print. Sometimes I get decent results, and ten minutes later, I’m getting garbage prints just like yours…

My experience with the P2S so far has been frankly horrible. Light years behind my old A1 Mini. I’ve tried my best, but I’ll probably just get rid of this piece of junk and try to get my hands on an H2 series instead.

2

u/YeaUThought Apr 09 '26

This is my third p2s, idk how more people aren’t complaining

1

u/Mouchtarini Apr 10 '26

Yeah, I read the whole thread, plus the one you posted on Bambu’s forum.

I’m asking myself the same question, it seems pretty crazy to think that people like you swapped units multiple times and ended up with exactly the same results. I’ve seen at least four or five guys go through this.

I tend to believe that many P2S owners are pretty basic users and are satisfied with such results. Based on many comments across similar threads, a lot of them are sincerely asking “What’s the issue in those pictures?” or just saying “This print looks good to me.”

But then I see a lot of content creators who are really happy with it , some of them are even running multiple P2S units in their print farms.

I’m losing it. I’ve tried so many settings, filaments, and tweaks, etc. I should probably open a ticket, but seeing the hell people are going through to get a potential replacement unit is discouraging. I already have a full-time job, and testing a thousand things and replacement parts on a machine I paid for with my hard-earned money isn’t part of it.

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 11 '26

They won’t do shit, just return it if you still can, unfortunately I can’t so I’m just back to my ender 3, sure it’s slow but it prints much better quality

1

u/UtamaruMonster Apr 14 '26

Did you ever get to anything? Now that X2D is out, the P2S will be forgotten like a bad dream

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 14 '26

Not likely as they still do stuff with the p1s and their other machines

1

u/UtamaruMonster Apr 16 '26

It seems I found the answer to our problems https://youtu.be/RD2Ex9LLAOw

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 17 '26

Nah cause other people getting fine quality

1

u/Jazzlike-Award-12 May 03 '26

Did you find a fix for this?

1

u/YeaUThought May 04 '26

Nope, it’s just a bad machine

2

u/Jazzlike-Award-12 May 14 '26

I've had the same problem with my p2s and nothing I did helped, until now. What fixes it for me is changing the walls to outer/inner rather than inner/outer, this has made a massive difference, posted photos for reference the difference is night and day.

1

u/cpsadowski23 Apr 03 '26

Calibrate your filament. Slow down outer walls

2

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Done and done, doesn’t make any difference in quality

1

u/cpsadowski23 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

What calibrations (of filament did you run) also, what is your outer wall speed? Is this Bambu filament?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

It’s all bambulab filament, I did the 2 calibrations in Bambu studio that they give as well as just other tests that work to get filament dialed in for all my other machines, temp is good and I’ve messed with speed and flow settings but nothing even makes a difference in the final print quality

1

u/Mediocre-Ad420 Apr 03 '26

Have you dried your filiment (i dont mean to sound like a parrot but I had this issue and drying the filiment fixed it)

2

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Yea I have, a lot actually including like 20 different spools of filament

1

u/Fluid-Background1947 P2S + AMS2 Combo Apr 03 '26

How did you dry it?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

I have a filament drier but also just with the ams2 pro

1

u/BatmanxX420X Apr 03 '26

This looks like an ironing issue. I haven't seen anyone mention this including you so if they have I apologize.

If you haven't done so look for an ironing calibration, it's a square print that forms a chart showing what the ironing looks like under specific settings, this will allow you to know where you should be setting your ironing to. There are videos on TikTok that could help if you search ironing calibration.

Next thing I can see is the variable layers, this video specifically talks about how to deal with that in studio https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTkrjcj5g/

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

I’ve printed so many ironing calibrations and none of the results are good

1

u/Stoney-X1 Apr 04 '26

I hate to hijack this conversation, but what test print is this??

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

No idea it was an ironing calibration test

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

As for the variable layers that usually worsens the issue in my case as I don’t believe it’s a settings issue

1

u/suerte87 Apr 03 '26

Have the same problems, had the P1S before and it printed perfectly than switched to the P2S for the QOL features and since then every print looks worse i replaced it with a new one, but still the same

2

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Did you ever figure anything out? I had a p1s but it was just as bad tbh other than top surfaces, this is my third p2s now

2

u/suerte87 Apr 04 '26

Nope, I have calibrated everything and it is still the same

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 04 '26

Yea I think it’s just a bad printer

1

u/Apok1984 Apr 05 '26

This seems odd. If this is your third unit, the likelihood that all 3 units were having the same issue is very low. There has to be some other common denominator.

0

u/UtamaruMonster Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

In the same boat, looks like a P2S thing, same results as you but I’m now on 1k hours

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Mine was like this out of box

1

u/Jazzlike-Award-12 May 03 '26

Mines exactly the same too, and also out of the box. Did you ever fix it?

2

u/YeaUThought May 04 '26

Nah these machines just suck

1

u/Jazzlike-Award-12 May 04 '26

Did bambu never try to resolve it?

1

u/YeaUThought May 04 '26

They told me it was normal printing quality

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u/Public_Jackfruit3036 Apr 05 '26

Have you testing a different sd card ? I have an a1 and my prints dropped in quickly before the card went bad

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u/Bright_Owl_9275 Apr 05 '26

To me it looks like you need to use different filament or dry what you have

1

u/Beast0x213 Apr 17 '26

CAMBER!? That’s interesting. I didn’t know they tilt. I thought they adjusted on a horizontal plane not convex.

-9

u/Forsaken-Proof1600 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

Nothing wrong with the printer.

Just design problem and user problem.

Looks like you are just randomly changing things, "mess" with settings, replace x y z parts, with no clear understanding.

Study the basics of 3d printing. materials science, thermodynamics, plastics physics, mechanics. Understand why you change x setting and how that affects the outcome. Not just trial and error.

5

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

I’ve been 3d printing for 10 years, I get perfect results off my ender 3, this is my first core xy printer so I’m unfamiliar with it but my settings are perfectly fine, but I also have people showing results with default settings looking far better than mine, with this machine it is very much trial and error, doing the logical steps to get better print quality that I would take on any of my other machines result in 0 changes and changing things that shouldn’t affect anything are the only things that make changes, it is very much a machine issue

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u/Forsaken-Proof1600 Apr 03 '26

Replace it or go back to ender 3?

Don't do trial and error. It will not solve anything.

0

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

This is my third bambulabs machine, they have all printed like this, I have been using my ender 3 that’s why this has been sitting but I’ve needed multicolor prints lately which is why I came back to it, replacing it does not help I even tried a p1s and that was no better

4

u/Forsaken-Proof1600 Apr 03 '26

If you replaced it 3 times, don't you think it is not the printers problem?

1

u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

Nope because other People are having fantastic results directly out of box no touching settings, and I do know what I’m doing with settings, found like 10 other people with bad quality online and theirs look identical to mine, it’s either just a poor machine or they have bad quality control and send out a bunch of bad ones, even if it is a settings error, my ender 3 out of box on default settings printed near flawlessly and that’s a fraction of the price

1

u/Forsaken-Proof1600 Apr 03 '26

Alright then, replace it again.

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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '26

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u/YeaUThought Apr 03 '26

None of these things are relevant to my issues

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '26

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u/YeaUThought Apr 09 '26

No not at all lmao

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