Database Users

[Q] Audio Jack Issues?

Just came across a disturbing report in a very recent Droid Life review of the Note 3 (from a list of N3 reviews posted on this forum) concerning "Audio Jack Issues". Anybody who treasures their hearing and uses their phablet for audio material (including movies, music, audiobooks, etc), especially using earbuds or headphones, might want to "listen up." The following is an excerpt from the review:
"...When listening to music through the 3.5mm jack, you are sometimes met with a very weak sound. It’s as if the sound of the music isn’t “full” or quite loud enough. Then, after a few minutes without touching anything while at full volume, the volume just explodes and you are left deafened by the surprise volume attack. Some people are pointing towards low-impedance headphones being the issue, but I have had the problem on multiple pairs of headphones, in-ear buds, through car decks, and everything else. It’s a very frustrating and reoccurring issue that I wish Samsung would find a cure for. Until then, I fear listening to music out of this device because I don’t want to go deaf. It might sound crazy, but it’s a very real issue that I experienced over the course of time I had the device."
I've had 3 Samsungs: a flip-phone a few years ago, a Fascinate 2 years ago, and currently Galaxy S3, and just preordered a Note 3. Of the three previous phones, two had infrequent but definitely-occurring audio issues where the volume changed unexpectedly. The flip phone blew out my ears once, and swore after that would never buy another Sammy (what a kidding-myself that turned out to be). What's unnerving is this seems to have appeared intermittently in multiple samsung phone models (the article reports yet another audio jack issue in the S4).
Chatted online with a VZW customer service rep. about this, who was really no help (wasn't her fault, i guess). She just regurgitated the company standard lines--14 days to return, restocking fee, can get a replacement if the problem occurs, etc. But she pretty much stated if there turns out to be a Note 3-specific issue, the customer is stuck with that model of phone; don't expect help from the carrier other than replacing with an identical unit might likely have the same problem; if you enjoy any kind of audio produced by the phone's audio jack, use it at your own risk. (Even more dicey is that it's intermittent--no guarantee you'll be able to demonstrate it to the carrier's service rep.)
Furthermore, i was one of those who got a free continuation of unlimited plan (thanks to the VZW ordering "system glitch" last weekend), which has been reported in the last day that VZW is going to honor contracts which show unlimited data. This rep completely contradicted that and claimed my data will be capped at 2gb at activation time. So with this diametrically-opposed chatter from VZW, what is one supposed to believe? Really suggests getting a satisfactory resolution from any carrier on a brand-specific phone problem like this to be wishful thinking.
Any thoughts or has anybody experienced thru-the-audio-jack sound issues with sammy phone products? My take is i'm not going to be on the bleeding edge of this one, too much of a hearing risk, cancelling preorder and wait for more reports on the N3 as time goes by.

For sure something is wrong with mine. (tmobile N3) The output levels are maybe half or less what my N2 can put out. I have carefully setup audio systems in my house and car, and it is unusable. Its also not USB compatible with the new Kenwood KMM 100u deck that plays FLAC files. It must be a glitch they can fix, i hope! The jack SQ sucks right now.

I hope mine won't have this problem.

*wierd double post an hour later*

dareo said:
For sure something is wrong with mine. (tmobile N3) The output levels are maybe half or less what my N2 can put out. I have carefully setup audio systems in my house and car, and it is unusable. Its also not USB compatible with the new Kenwood KMM 100u deck that plays FLAC files. It must be a glitch they can fix, i hope! The jack SQ sucks right now.
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I got that the first time you said it.

im experiencing this too with an AU Telstra Note 3.
ive tested it a bit and it seems like its 2 separate things to me, but I could be wrong.
firstly it seems like all EQs either crash or just lose their settings at random moments. this can be things like between track changes or when the 3G signal drops out. if you go back into the EQ panel it will kick in again, almost like it was off and you've launched it again.. very annoying. ive verified this with both the stock EQ and noozxoide. the difference in volume is minimal though, its more quality / bass / whatever EQ you use.
the second part with the volume dropping out completely only happens to me between track changes. if i pause the music for a couple of seconds then play it again, it will play at normal volume. fast forwarding between tracks is the most obvious since every other track will be minimal volume, and the ones in-between normal volume.
ive only tested this with google music. although my phone isnt stock now, the same behaviour was there out of the box. using etymotic earbuds with reasonably high impedance but i doubt thats the issue since pause/replay fixes it.

Doesn't happen to me on N7player or PlayerPro. (nor on videos in Dice, MX or VLC.)
Try not using stock apps if you have the issue. Might just be a stock problem.
I can't test Google music, I disabled that. Stock player itself is too annoying for me to try.
Send From My Samsung Galaxy Note 3 N9005 Using Tapatalk

kanemari said:
im experiencing this too with an AU Telstra Note 3.
ive tested it a bit and it seems like its 2 separate things to me, but I could be wrong.
firstly it seems like all EQs either crash or just lose their settings at random moments. this can be things like between track changes or when the 3G signal drops out. if you go back into the EQ panel it will kick in again, almost like it was off and you've launched it again.. very annoying. ive verified this with both the stock EQ and noozxoide. the difference in volume is minimal though, its more quality / bass / whatever EQ you use.
the second part with the volume dropping out completely only happens to me between track changes. if i pause the music for a couple of seconds then play it again, it will play at normal volume. fast forwarding between tracks is the most obvious since every other track will be minimal volume, and the ones in-between normal volume.
ive only tested this with google music. although my phone isnt stock now, the same behaviour was there out of the box. using etymotic earbuds with reasonably high impedance but i doubt thats the issue since pause/replay fixes it.
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Got the same here. N9005 with Google Play Music. Sometimes it's also (it seems) input-triggered. Sometimes when I push Menu or Back button, volume goes down and when I open Browser volume goes up. I know this sounds like voodoo and I'm completely crazy but I got this situation some times now.
With original sound files this problem came very often but after installing sound mod, it became seldom but not solved.
Annoying!
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Silberpfeil3110 said:
Got the same here. N9005 with Google Play Music. Sometimes it's also (it seems) input-triggered. Sometimes when I push Menu or Back button, volume goes down and when I open Browser volume goes up. I know this sounds like voodoo and I'm completely crazy but I got this situation some times now.
With original sound files this problem came very often but after installing sound mod, it became seldom but not solved.
Annoying!
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I actually moved to the stock sammy app since it was irritating me so much. i have to say though, that if you can be bothered syncing a playlist to your phone that the sound is much better through that... hard to pick fault with.
i set up galaxy adaptive sound first, which is the one that plays high med low tones through left and right channels on your headphones independently and lets you tune it. found a much more balanced tone coming out after that, to which I then applied higher bass EQ settings from within the sammy music player and it sounds pretty good. some distortion on really heavy bass tracks at high volume, but very nice otherwise. MUCH BETTER than variable bass and audio volume on the google music player.
i think samsung neglected to test the standard music APIs and borked them, but their own proprietary ones work fine. the adaptive music filter doesnt work in any player apart from the sammy one I read.
since i cant cross-flash regional roms without voiding knox warranty i havent tried the updated EU roms, but maybe they fix it there?

Experiencing same problem on my AT&T note 3. Google Music tracks will randomly apply a shoddy EQ setting that is either too loud or too soft. Then the next track will be normal. It explodes my ear drums constantly. I have the EQ set off also, but that doesn't seem to matter. Also unplugging and re plugging the headphone jack "fixes" the issue as well. I'm pretty annoyed by this problem.

[Q] Music apt-X falters, stammers or studders

So I have this Note 3 which I like a lot. Big screen to watch series in the train, although after a while I got pretty fed up with the chord of the earphones, expecially when I had to get up, swiched to music and had to stuff my phone in some pocket.
So I looked around for some nice Bluetooth headphones and came across a nice deal on the Sennheiser MM 550-X. Just stating the model for any chance that someone is aware of some faults in this product.
Now, overall the sound quality is fine, which you would expect because of the apt-X thing which both devices support. But what really annoys me, is the following.
While listening to the native musicplayer, the music sort of studders. Not all the time, but like one or a few times per minute and then not at all for a few minutes. Some faults sound like pops, but some are real pauses for like half a second. Especially with those longer pauses I can distinctly hear that the music really 'pauses' and that it is not just the connection which fails while the music on my Note plays on.
So I suppose it has something to do with the apt-X coding. I already tried rebooting, killing background processes, switching off wifi and mobile data. I also tried different music players. Nothing seems to help.
The only time when I have almost no problems is when I'm at home, with te phone lying still on the desk.
I have a stock rom.
Does anyone have an idea how I can fix this?

duduscoke said:
So I have this Note 3 which I like a lot. Big screen to watch series in the train, although after a while I got pretty fed up with the chord of the earphones, expecially when I had to get up, swiched to music and had to stuff my phone in some pocket.
So I looked around for some nice Bluetooth headphones and came across a nice deal on the Sennheiser MM 550-X. Just stating the model for any chance that someone is aware of some faults in this product.
Now, overall the sound quality is fine, which you would expect because of the apt-X thing which both devices support. But what really annoys me, is the following.
While listening to the native musicplayer, the music sort of studders. Not all the time, but like one or a few times per minute and then not at all for a few minutes. Some faults sound like pops, but some are real pauses for like half a second. Especially with those longer pauses I can distinctly hear that the music really 'pauses' and that it is not just the connection which fails while the music on my Note plays on.
So I suppose it has something to do with the apt-X coding. I already tried rebooting, killing background processes, switching off wifi and mobile data. I also tried different music players. Nothing seems to help.
The only time when I have almost no problems is when I'm at home, with te phone lying still on the desk.
I have a stock rom.
Does anyone have an idea how I can fix this?
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Try them with another phone?

FeralFire said:
Try them with another phone?
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That's difficult, because I don't have a phone which supports apt-X available.

duduscoke said:
That's difficult, because I don't have a phone which supports apt-X available.
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Most phones these days support it.
Maybe a friend's?
Maybe the problem is something else entirely. You need to troubleshoot it.
I am just guessing, though. Never used bluetooth headsets myself.

Help with voice control/playing music

Hi there,
I have an issue which is really coming between me and my sleep.
Here's where I'm at - I have been using an iPhone 6S Plus for a few months which I think is a great phone. But I'm a mobile geek. And I bore easily. And I love Android Wear. I have an S6 Edge Plus which was a loan from Samsung (which they haven't asked back) and I really like the idea of it becoming my daily driver. I'm fully bought into Android as well as iOS as I've been flip flopping between the two OS' for years. And I love the openness of it.
BUT - there is one thing that is stopping me and that is this:
I do a lot of driving for work and I have a great setup with my stereo system, It connects via Bluetooth audio, I can just yell 'Hey Siri' and tell it to, say, 'play music by Louis Armstrong' and with the tight integration with Apple Music and it plays it well. I don't have to take my hands off the wheel and it streams the song within a second or two.
I've always thought Google Now much better, but I have real issues with getting it to play music. I have Spotify installed and I've also added Google Play Music Premium but Samsung appears to have crippled this a bit.. You have to have the phone charging for it to work with the screen off (no biggie - I have a charge in my car), but if I tell it to play music, it says 'OK' and then it does nothing. I have to then unlock the screen before it actually completes the command. Which obviously negates the whole point. I may as well pull over every song and manually do it.
I can't stress how frustrating this is. What I want to do is just be able to say 'OK Google, Play Madonna Holiday' and for it to play the song. Not for me to have to say that, then unlock the phone and repeat all over again.
Some points:
* All voice recognition options in the 'voice detection' settings are enabled.
* When I say 'unlock', I mean get past the lock screen. I have the S6 Edge Plus set up with both my stereo AND Android Wear watch as trusted devices, so the phone isn't refusing to do this from a security standpoint as I just have to swipe the screen to get it to the main home screen, not input a pin or scan a fingerprint.
Any ideas? Would really help me! This is such a small thing, but it really is a killer deal for me in terms of whether I can commit to this phone full time.
Thanks in advance!

sound cutting out a lot

Is anyone else having problem with the sound cutting out for a split second at least once per song? I am having this problem whether it's Poweramp, Spotify, of playing a music video. It seems worse when using the phone or right now while copying files to the SD card from the computer. Last time i had audio cutting out or glitching on a phone was the POS Motorola Razer HD I had. It was horrible.

anyone else having this problem? it's driving me crazy. The sound cuts out for a split second for every song and sometimes multiple times in one song. it's doing it a bunch for each song at the moment. I rebooted the phone but no change. It's pretty disappointing. I passed up LG for the last few years because of quality control issues and I hoped this time they would have a good phone.

Is your music on a memory card?

gavinfabl said:
Is your music on a memory card?
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Yes. Same card I used on my GS7 with no problems. But it does it on spotify too and that's streaming.
Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

still having problems with the sound cutting out. I counted 5 times on one song and 2 times on the next song. Not to mention all the other songs it does this. I guess I'm going to have to call Verizon tomorrow. I was hoping someone on here had some insight or know of a software update that might fix it. I don't know if a replacement would fix it or if i need to exchange for a different model. Does anyone else have problems or is it working fine with Spotify or Poweramp etc? Oh the next song just started and about 30 seconds in it did it again. ugh!!! It makes my skin crawl it irritates me. And it just did it again as I'm typing. argh!!!!

Same thing happens on my end, using Spotify (Internal storage or SD card do the same thing, tried both). This happens to me streaming via Bluetooth to my Pioneer head unit in my car, every 2-3 songs I will get a 0.5-1second mute and then it resumes playing as normal.

micfinn said:
Same thing happens on my end, using Spotify (Internal storage or SD card do the same thing, tried both). This happens to me streaming via Bluetooth to my Pioneer head unit in my car, every 2-3 songs I will get a 0.5-1second mute and then it resumes playing as normal.
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I've had it happen either wired or bluetooth. This is troubling not knowing if it's software or hardware problems and if LG is going to have a fix anytime soon.

Ughhhhhhhhhh I'm having the same issue! It was especially bad when I first set up the phone brand new out of the box. It got to the point that I did a factory reset. Unfortunately, that didn't fix the problem and my audio still cuts out exactly like you said -- for about a second at a time. My songs are also on my SD card but it also happens when I stream from Google Play Music. I'm glad it's not just me, but LG better address this.

getting this as well
I only stream from Google play music. Doesn't matter if I choose high quality or normal, I get fairly regular popping/crackling and occasional glitches. I installed the snapdragon audio+, didn't help.

Haven't heard it cut out, but am hearing some kind of... I don't know..... feedback when it's turned up. Trying to pay more attention to see if I can isolate / identify it.

I've had this issue with every LG. I know a lot of people say that as if they've had LG but just over exaggerating but I really have had every flagship LG since the Optimus G. It never mattered if it was plugged in or Bluetooth. I noticed it more with my car stereo. I always just assumed I had a faulty stereo. Till I had a friend start using their S7 in my car and they didn't have this issue. Took me awhile to realize it wasn't happening on their phone. So that ruled out a faulty stereo. I'm just happy someone else also has the issue and it's not just me.
Anyway, LG will not be fixing this issue anytime soon.
LG devices I've had this issue with. (It got worse with each release... So sad)
LG Optimus G
G2
G3
G4
G5
V10
V20
G6

I listen to a lot of music everyday and I haven't had this problem. I listen to music on SD card, Pandora, DoubleTwist Cloud player, wired headphones and bluetooth. I wonder if it's some other app causing it. On bluetooth the music stops playing when i get text or email so maybe another app is somehow cutting the sound or something. I don't know, very strange.

hellot1M said:
I've had this issue with every LG. I know a lot of people say that as if they've had LG but just over exaggerating but I really have had every flagship LG since the Optimus G. It never mattered if it was plugged in or Bluetooth. I noticed it more with my car stereo. I always just assumed I had a faulty stereo. Till I had a friend start using their S7 in my car and they didn't have this issue. Took me awhile to realize it wasn't happening on their phone. So that ruled out a faulty stereo. I'm just happy someone else also has the issue and it's not just me.
Anyway, LG will not be fixing this issue anytime soon.
LG devices I've had this issue with. (It got worse with each release... So sad)
LG Optimus G
G2
G3
G4
G5
V10
V20
G6
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That's a shame that LG won't fix the problem. So what exactly is causing the audio problems with players like Poweramp and Player Pro? I installed the Poweramp V3 alpha and it doesn't have the problem. I tried PlayerPro and it has the problem. Really sucks a high end phone can't play high end audio apps. the verizon guy at the store i went to and exchanged my phone over this issue told me the maybe poweramp runs too fast for the phone. or it's my memory card. but how can poweramp run too fast for the phone it's a high end phone for petes sakes. and the new phone was the same with the issue.

From what I've gathered over the years of researching this issue is that the audio codec that LG uses and has used for most their phones may be the root cause. That an update could fix it but it doesn't seem to be on LGs priority list. This issue is also very hard to find. This is literally the only article that discusses it with as much detail as everyone has provided. Everything else I find ends with a deadend after one post. As if nobody else notices or cares.
There has got to be a place we can let them know and with enough people maybe they will finally do something about it.

hellot1M said:
From what I've gathered over the years of researching this issue is that the audio codec that LG uses and has used for most their phones may be the root cause. That an update could fix it but it doesn't seem to be on LGs priority list. This issue is also very hard to find. This is literally the only article that discusses it with as much detail as everyone has provided. Everything else I find ends with a deadend after one post. As if nobody else notices or cares.
There has got to be a place we can let them know and with enough people maybe they will finally do something about it.
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It's a shame this topic runs into dead ends. With the popularity of Poweramp and PlayerPro i'm surprised more people aren't complaining and discussing it. unless people are doing mostly streaming. I know very little people that have mp3's these days. I don't know anyone that even knows Poweramp. even the tech support over the phone or the guy in the store never heard of it. and when i had problems in the past with a old motorola razr HD the tech support blamed poweramp saying that the phone must not support it.

I forgot to mention two weeks ago the when playing music with Poweramp the left channel started cutting out off and on for 10 mins then eventually going out altogether till i unplugged the headphones and plugged back in. only did it that one occasion till today. now i'm driving out of town and it's not ideal to keep unplugging the aux cable while driving on the highway. The left channel kept going off again. I tried both PlayerPro and Poweramp. eventually it stopped on it's own. anyone else having this awful problem? I"m not buying LG again. they can't their quality control straight for nothing. so much for giving them a try.

What music players do you guys use for the LG G6 that doesn't have the audio cutting out or skipping that is comparable to Poweramp? I was considering Player Pro but it has the same problem. i tried JetAudio Music Player but the highs sound muffled without one of the audio enhancers you have to pay extra for. I don't like the idea of buying an app and then having to pay extra for other features when other apps have it included for free.

railfan-eric said:
I forgot to mention two weeks ago the when playing music with Poweramp the left channel started cutting out off and on for 10 mins then eventually going out altogether till i unplugged the headphones and plugged back in. only did it that one occasion till today. now i'm driving out of town and it's not ideal to keep unplugging the aux cable while driving on the highway. The left channel kept going off again. I tried both PlayerPro and Poweramp. eventually it stopped on it's own. anyone else having this awful problem? I"m not buying LG again. they can't their quality control straight for nothing. so much for giving them a try.
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I'm still having this problem with the audio cutting out completely on the left channel from the headphone jack. it only did it on one occasion with my headphones. But it happens almost every time i use it with my car stereo or in someone else's car on his stereo. so i know it isn't my aux cable or my stereo. i never had this problem before. i am disappointed with LG and they're hopeless for giving us an update for all these problems. I can't wait to switch to something else but i have to wait at least a year to be able to trade in my phone for another on Verizon Edge.
Also still having the problems with the audio cutting out for a split second with PlayerPro. with the PowerAmp 3 alpha 704 i got the settings tweaked and i don't notice the problem anymore. But still have the headphone jack/aux cable sound issue. is there any tweak that could possibly fix it? is the DAC getting overloaded causing the left channel to quit working?

No issues at all here. Had no issues with my V10 either for what its worth. Streaming Spotify and Tidal all the time. Sound has not clipped one single time.

Only time I see this issue is when I'm connected to multiple Bluetooth devices and one of them disconnects.

Google assistant useless?

I normally have my phone paired to my helmet with a Sena S20. I can normally issue voice commands, play music, take calls, etc...
Not anymore. On beta 3, it will only let me play music if I physically press play on the phone, which I can't do as I ride down the road with it in my jacked pocket.
The pause and fast forward buttons, don't work. If I enable Google now, I can tell it to pause music, and it will. If I tell it to play music, it won't. If I tell it to play music without the headset, it offers to play it but I have to click on the screen on the app.
Basically, Google now isn't doing most of the things it used to on other phones. And it doesn't let my bt device control the music like it should.
I just paired the headset to my wife's iPhone and it works perfectly.
It used to work on my essential, my op5t, pixel2 xl and op3. No longer works with the essential and I just did a clean reset last week.
Stock, no root. No mods.
Any ideas? I am trying so hard to love this phone but this and other bugs are making it really hard.

SquireSCA said:
I normally have my phone paired to my helmet with a Sena S20. I can normally issue voice commands, play music, take calls, etc...
Not anymore. On beta 3, it will only let me play music if I physically press play on the phone, which I can't do as I ride down the road with it in my jacked pocket.
The pause and fast forward buttons, don't work. If I enable Google now, I can tell it to pause music, and it will. If I tell it to play music, it won't. If I tell it to play music without the headset, it offers to play it but I have to click on the screen on the app.
Basically, Google now isn't doing most of the things it used to on other phones. And it doesn't let my bt device control the music like it should.
I just paired the headset to my wife's iPhone and it works perfectly.
It used to work on my essential, my op5t, pixel2 xl and op3. No longer works with the essential and I just did a clean reset last week.
Stock, no root. No mods.
Any ideas? I am trying so hard to love this phone but this and other bugs are making it really hard.
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Update to latest Google now. Older version did exactly what you said.
Sent from my PH-1 using XDA Labs

It says its on the latest version. I don't see anything newer in the play store?

SOmehow I got the controls on the headset to work last night on the ride home. Not sure why it was messing up but it now appears to be watching. It might be some sort of conflict with my Android Wear watch. Maybe only one device can control audio at a time? I dunno...
But this Google Now/Assistant problem happens with both Android Auto, and when my phone is just sitting on my desk not connected to anything.
Normally I tell it "Play Music", and it just shuffles the 500 or so songs that are downloaded as MP3's onto the phone, and it plays them through Google Play Music... If I tell it "Play Bruno Mars" it just automatically plays all the Bruno Mars songs... Same with Android Auto.
Now when I tell it those commands, it just brings up the google play music app and I have to then push buttons and play what I want. It's all manual, which defeats the entire purpose of "hands free"... When on Android Auto and I give the same command, it will try to play something from the cloud rather than what I have on the device, but it never does, it just sits there spinning...
I don't like Samsung or any of the devices with curved edge displays... the Pixel2 XL is great but the screens from LG are crap. The OP5T is brilliant, but doesn't get VoLTE on AT&T, so no HD Calling or voice and data on LTE at the same time... The Essential is solid hardware wise, but plagued with it's own bugs and now apparently this Android bug... If I can't get a damned flagship Android phone that I like, that actually works properly... I might have to go back to an iPhone... I can't keep dropping hundreds of dollars on phones for them to "sorta work" or or lack key features...
What can I do to solve this issue, if its saying that I am on the latest version already?

What I am finding is that this is a problem going back to October? Google changed Assistant, so that you can no longer use voice commands to play local music on your device hands free, unless you pay for a subscription?

So, not an essential bug, it's a Google Assistant thing where they now want you to pay $10 a month to be able to use voice commands to listen to the music that you already own. What BS is that?
Google, soon to be out Appling Apple... LOL

SquireSCA said:
Google, soon to be out Appling Apple... LOL
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LMAO