Suggestion MobileMe Sync

OGC · July 2010

[quote name='<Rob />']Hi OGC, and welcome to the forums!

As I'm sure you know Dropbox syncing is a seamless sync solution that is coming soon. MobileMe syncing is something that we started to tackle first, but changed directions for a few reasons:

1. Minor: there was an issue that disrupted our development of syncing through MobileMe. We will have another look, but we wanted to get automatic syncing out quickly.

2. Major: Dropbox is free; MobileMe is not. - It's easier to get users using a free service that they weren't using than a paid service they weren't using. With that said, we understand that paying MobileMe users want to be able to use that service for syncing since they are paying for it.

3. Major: Dropbox is already being used by thousands of users to sync their data between their Macs and now Windows machines. It makes sense for us to go ahead and implement syncing for a service we have already recommended in the past.

I hope that makes sense. We're certainly still planning to support sync solutions other than Dropbox; we just want to get Dropbox syncing out and working first.

Thanks for the feedback![/QUOTE]

Keep it up!

Da Man · July 2010

This has become ridiculous.

1)There was a feature promised that persuaded me to upgrade, and that feature has NOT been delivered.

2)I do NOT care if Dropbox is free. I use MobileMe, as do a great any other mac users. I do not want system and bandwidth clutter.

Either announce you aren't going to support it and hand out refunds to every user who bought 3.0 or upgraded from 2.0 based on a hollow promise, or announce your development schedule, beta release, and time frame.

It's that simple.

And please save the 'thanks for joining the forum, and we're working on it' platitude. It's going to be coming up on a year of promises. One could almost call the attorney general of their state at this time, report your company for false advertising or perhaps bait-and-switch (which in MN is prosecuted with aggression by current AG Lori Swanson), and have a possible class action suit brought on behalf of this scam you have run on people who trusted you at one point and time.

Ball's in your court, and you need to make a move.

KraetzichriZ · July 2010

I totally agree with you "Da Man"

(n)(n)(n)

Da Man · July 2010

What's funny is I usually roll my eyes when some random individual on the internet using something other than his real name drops the words 'lawsuit' or 'attorney'. But in this case, I'm actually considering it (going to call on Monday to State AG office for some research).

I don't mind being patient, but there's patient, and then there's standing in place, legs spread, while someone repeatedly kicks you in the groin while saying 'I promise, I'll stop doing this really soon' and then kicking you again.

I've got two iphones, an ipad, and two macs (both macs are in geographically different locations). This functionality is paramount to my ease of use.

Get your act in gear, Agile.

roustem · July 2010

The MobileMe sync is half-way done but with so many new developments (iPad, iOS 4, Safari Extensions, Chrome, Dropbox API) it is not our top priority.

Dropbox syncing for Mac and Windows works very well at the moment. Dropbox sync implementation for our iPhone and iPad apps has been completed and was submitted for App Store review this week.

I do not think you will see MobileMe sync completed in near future (this year).

If you are not happy with 1Password 3, please send us an email and request a refund.

[Deleted User] · July 2010

Other developers have learned (sometimes the rough way) that it's often in everyone's better interest not to pre-announce products/features and speculative release schedules.

OGC · July 2010

[quote name='roustem']The MobileMe sync is half-way done but with so many new developments (iPad, iOS 4, Safari Extensions, Chrome, Dropbox API) it is not our top priority.

Dropbox syncing for Mac and Windows works very well at the moment. Dropbox sync implementation for our iPhone and iPad apps has been completed and was submitted for App Store review this week.

I do not think you will see MobileMe sync completed in near future (this year).

If you are not happy with 1Password 3, please send us an email and request a refund.[/QUOTE]

This year, for real!?

dteare · July 2010

[quote name='OGC']This year, for real!?[/QUOTE]

Sadly, yes. We found some severe issues with the WebDAV syncing implementation and we realized that we could not release this feature as is because it would provide a terrible user experience. We hope to find a way around the limitations we found but I cannot make any promises that we will be successful.

We spent a lot of time on MobileMe/WebDAV syncing and we were very happy with everything except the performance. Until we can make the performance better, we have to keep it under wraps.

I'm sorry that we could not deliver on this promise. I really am. We were excited that we had it working 80% and thought it was ok to promise because we were so close. Unfortunately, once we started dealing with bigger data files and attachments, we found the performance unusable.

After using Dropbox we were so enamoured by it that we decided to shift our focus to make Dropbox our first "Sync to the cloud" implementation. I am hoping what we learn from Dropbox will be applicable to MobileMe and we can have both. With that said, I'm very reluctant to give you false hope so if you do not want to use 1Password without MobileMe, please email us for a refund.

KraetzichriZ · July 2010

[quote name='dteare']Sadly, yes. We found some severe issues with the WebDAV syncing implementation and we realized that we could not release this feature as is because it would provide a terrible user experience. We hope to find a way around the limitations we found but I cannot make any promises that we will be successful.

We spent a lot of time on MobileMe/WebDAV syncing and we were very happy with everything except the performance. Until we can make the performance better, we have to keep it under wraps.

I'm sorry that we could not deliver on this promise. I really am. We were excited that we had it working 80% and thought it was ok to promise because we were so close. Unfortunately, once we started dealing with bigger data files and attachments, we found the performance unusable.

After using Dropbox we were so enamoured by it that we decided to shift our focus to make Dropbox our first "Sync to the cloud" implementation. I am hoping what we learn from Dropbox will be applicable to MobileMe and we can have both. With that said, I'm very reluctant to give you false hope so if you do not want to use 1Password without MobileMe, please email us for a refund.[/QUOTE]

This sounds Ok for me.

Well, the question is: why this statement did not come 3 or 6 month ago? We are all customers and want use your product.

Well, I like it so much and I'm really looking forward to the Dropbox sync feature - just to see how it works. I'm sure you will get MobileMe right, and release it, as soon it's ok for your quality standards.

My 1Password DB is really small (100 Passwords+?) and no attachements - I think this can work good for me.

Well, your decision: no release until it's perfect. I appreciate it and looking forward to 2011.

I know CultureCode (they make "Things") are working also for a long long time on that, and are working there butt's off and can't get this to work right.

Panic (they make Transmit and other cool products) get there Bookmark sync and it's working really well.

I hope we all enjoy the dropbox sync and enjoy mobileme sync in 2011.

Maybe you should post a roadmap and the actual state of the goals on agilewebsolutions.com for customers who are waiting for that. I know it's hard work, but if there is delay, just say it. It's ok.

Maybe performance is something you can fix later. Performance depends also on your webdav device. I got my rootserver with 1000Mbit+. It's super fast and I have WebDav access. Maybe MobileMe sync is - because MobileMe is - a little bit slower then my own server. If performance is the only problem, maybe that's not as big as you think?

Cheers,

Chris

jxpx777 · July 2010

[quote name='KraetzichriZ']Well, the question is: why this statement did not come 3 or 6 month ago? We are all customers and want use your product.[/quote]

We really appreciate all our users. We were so excited about MobileMe syncing and we had a lot of fun working on it together when we gathered for a conference. We made a lot of progress and it was looking really good for a release. Then, we started bumping into the limitations that Dave mentioned. Ever optimistic, we were certain we could overcome those limitations (Roustem is a ninja, after all!) but so far, that has proven not to be the case. When the opportunity came about to use the Dropbox API, we suspected based on our experiences with Dropbox on the Mac (We've been big fans for a long time) that the performance would be much better, so Roustem jumped in with both feet. With Dropbox, the process was much smoother and now we have the update pending review with Apple that supports it. Personally, I have described Dropbox to everyone I recommend it to as "what iDisk wishes it could be." :D We really think you're going to love it!

[quote]My 1Password DB is really small (100 Passwords+?) and no attachements - I think this can work good for me.[/quote]

You're absolutely right that as it is now, the sync would probably work pretty well for you. If all users had similar datasets, I think it would be OK. But, we are some of the heaviest users of 1Password and we have hundreds of items with attachments that are multiple megabytes each. Sadly, we have also heard of users with larger datasets (thousands of entries and hundreds of megabytes of attachments) so it's not something we feel like we can make available without disappointing a significant portion of our users.

[quote]I know CultureCode (they make "Things") are working also for a long long time on that, and are working there butt's off and can't get this to work right.

Panic (they make Transmit and other cool products) get there Bookmark sync and it's working really well.[/quote]

I'd like to mention that the WebDAV implementation that OmniFocus uses, presumably the same as what Cultured Code and we are are working on as well, is very different from Transmit's syncing. Yes, they both use your MobileMe account, but Transmit is only on the desktop and AFAIK uses SyncServices, which is not yet available on iOS.

[quote]Maybe performance is something you can fix later. Performance depends also on your webdav device. I got my rootserver with 1000Mbit+. It's super fast and I have WebDav access. Maybe MobileMe sync is - because MobileMe is - a little bit slower then my own server. If performance is the only problem, maybe that's not as big as you think?[/QUOTE]

I think you would be in a significant minority of users that a) has a webserver and b) knows how to configure it for WebDAV.

[quote]Well, your decision: no release until it's perfect. I appreciate it and looking forward to 2011.[/quote]

Thanks for your understanding. I hope we are able to make it worth the wait.

[quote]Maybe you should post a roadmap and the actual state of the goals on agilewebsolutions.com for customers who are waiting for that. I know it's hard work, but if there is delay, just say it. It's ok.[/quote]

I think this thread really represents why we don't like to share timeframes quite well. It's not that we want to be secretive or unhelpful to our users that are trying to make purchasing decisions or anything like that. I recognize how tough these decisions can be without some bits of information. Usually, all we can do is say that a feature is something we want to investigate for a future release or flat out deny any interest in the feature. (The latter is how we generally reply to things like new platforms until we're ready to unveil something that's at least usable like we have with Windows and Android.) The reason we don't like to give targets or development roadmaps is because we practice agile development. Things can change quickly (We love it!) just like when the iPad was announced and when the Dropbox API became available. These things were great opportunities that we might have missed if we were committed to a roadmap that we'd published. But, the pain of missing those opportunities is nothing compared to the pain of disappointing our awesome users. So, we would rather surprise and delight our users than make promises or projections that could potentially result in disappointment.

thightower · July 2010

Sort of off topic I would also like to mention that there is a votebox request on dropbox for webdav syncing which most folks would like to use for things like omnifocus, etc if anyone is interested.

[url]https://www.dropbox.com/votebox/122/webdav-support[/url]

It has been getting increased numbers over the last month or so, I personally have added all our votes to it and all the referrals I have have also voted for it. I am hoping to get all my syncing into one place. iDisk just is way to slow. Now on the other hand Apple has made great strides as far as I am concerned with mail and the calendar beta (still waiting on my 5 invites family pack). My point is maybe idisk is going to grow up next beta cycle this is only speculation but the new server farm Apple built about 100 miles from my home has me wondering. Oh and hoping as well I would really love to be able to utilize my idisk more, but im so dropbox now I don't know if that will ever happen.

Humm :? Apple buys DB with that huge war chest it has saved up. :lol: Doubtful but stranger things have happened.

KraetzichriZ · July 2010

[quote name='thightower']Sort of off topic I would also like to mention that there is a votebox request on dropbox for webdav syncing which most folks would like to use for things like omnifocus, etc if anyone is interested.

[url]https://www.dropbox.com/votebox/122/webdav-support[/url]

It has been getting increased numbers over the last month or so, I personally have added all our votes to it and all the referrals I have have also voted for it. I am hoping to get all my syncing into one place. iDisk just is way to slow. Now on the other hand Apple has made great strides as far as I am concerned with mail and the calendar beta (still waiting on my 5 invites family pack). My point is maybe idisk is going to grow up next beta cycle this is only speculation but the new server farm Apple built about 100 miles from my home has me wondering. Oh and hoping as well I would really love to be able to utilize my idisk more, but im so dropbox now I don't know if that will ever happen.

Humm :? Apple buys DB with that huge war chest it has saved up. :lol: Doubtful but stranger things have happened.[/QUOTE]

Maybe you are right. Maybe not. Doesn't matter. Anyway...

Well, I will tell you why I love Mac's and why I use the iDisk MobileMe and so on.

There are some reasons, but there are 2 TOP Reasons:

1. I don't like free service from Google, and other companys that act like STASI.

I don't know what's happening with Dropbox in 1 Year (maybe apple buy them and close the service) and I don't know what they are doing with my data. (I know that If I place my file on dropbox and the files got leaked, even if the 1password database is encrypted you can see where I have accounts, this sucks!)

I feel much better if I pay for services like that. Because this, I use MobileMe and not Google, Dropbox or something like that.

The 2nd Reason is: I hate clutter.

I really hate 100 programs for 10 things. I don't want have MobileMe, Drobox, Google Sync, Blackberry Sync, 1Password and 100 other tools for doing some sort of things. I already have MobileMe and I have the iDisk, and it's working great. For me, speed doesn't that much matter, it's more important that everything is in sync.

I installed Dropbox on my machine only for 1Password now, and I have an additional Icon next to my clock and can't remove it. This sucks. This really sucks.

I just checked my 1PAssword DB. It has 8mb. I don't think that it's a problem to wiressly sync it over MobileMe/WebDav.

[B]Maybe it's a good solution to activate it as Beta![/B]

Everyone can choose. Everyone should have a Backup, and if the database blows, not your fault.

Big warning screen before activate it which tell's, that if your DB is - for example - more then 10mb it's not a good idea to sync it over WebDav. This would be much cooler then say "Ohh, well, next year, maybe... we're working on it".

Apple also had a Beta of MobileMe Mail and now Calendar. They say it's beta, have a backup and by going back to the Final version all changes are gone, I must have a backup. I think this woul'd be a really cool solution and show how much you (h) your customers.

Cheers,

Chris

dteare · July 2010

[quote name='KraetzichriZ'] I think this woul'd be a really cool solution and show how much you (h) your customers.[/QUOTE]

You make some valid points Chris, I don't deny that. As for the (h), however, it is exactly the opposite. In the days when 1P used the OS X Keychain, users would enable MobileMe syncing and very frequently they would lose all their data. These sad stories would break our hearts and we couldn't stand hearing about the horrors that users were going through. Everyone knows that they should be backing up, but at the end of the day, the point is their data was gone and they were in a heap of trouble.

If we hid behind a big PR firm and cloaked ourselves behind a huge CS team so that we never saw the pain users were going through, then I wouldn't mind adding half baked features and brush my hands of the issue. I for one would not call this "love"; in fact, I'd call it the opposite. This is how the world operated when I worked at IBM, and the quality of the products we shipped reflected this.

We prefer to actively listen to our users, one-on-one, and learn how we can improve. We love our users and work our butts off trying to make our products as good as they can be. With any luck, someday 1P+MobileMe syncing will fit this bill, but until we can make things work great, it will not be seeing the light of day.

Da Man · July 2010

From the industry rumors about the server farm Apple is constructing and Apple's active development of itunes-in-the-cloud (and how this would logically tie in to a MobileMe subscription), Agile risks being caught with their pants down. While I appreciate the honesty and candor that has suddenly been discovered on Agile's part, it is also disappointing it took phrases like 'bait-and-switch' and 'State AG' for you to discover this new message.

The reasons stated above by Jaime for not publishing a timeline are great, but these reasons don't appear to have been followed until this week (really the last 2 days). It was promises, 'coming-soon' adverts, and 'almost in beta' thread posts to keep selling a product that was deficient and lacking from it's 3.0 release. How many users would have upgraded to 3.0 with an upfront honest message that MobileMe syncing was not available and was simply a hope to integrate in the future? Or simply NO mention of it at all? Who knows. Be honest. You profited from this fact. For a lot of users, it is quite difficult to transfer over to a different product from what they currently have. Refund or not, the proverbial 'damage' has been done.

Dave-you use phrases in your previous post such as 'we prefer to actively listen to our user one-on-one', 'not releasing half-baked products', and 'not being able to bear the pain users were going through (actually, with the move to 3.0 and the switch to your keychain, you have caused just that when a person wishes to leave Agile's ecosystem)'. But in reality, until this week, you did NONE OF THIS. Now you're hiding behind good PR.

As for myself, it has left me to seek out an alternative, then request refunds for the products (yes, plural) purchased. Until then, I'll hang on to the screen shots of 'MobileMe syncing' and 'idisk compatibility' product features advertised for so long both on your website, in the app store, and this forum in particular.

Enjoy what is left of the weekend, folks.

dteare · July 2010

[quote name='Da Man']While I appreciate the honesty and candor that has suddenly been discovered on Agile's part, it is also disappointing it took phrases like 'bait-and-switch' and 'State AG' for you to discover this new message.[/quote]

I'm not sure why you think these attacks is what caused use to be honest and candor. In fact, I think the problem is we have been [b]too open[/b] about what our plans are. Reading back through this thread should make that clear. On [url=http://support.agilewebsolutions.com/showthread.php?19643-MobileMe-Sync&p=111515#post111515]02-03-2010 I wrote this[/url]:

[quote=dteare]

I appreciate your passion joco and I wish I had a better answer for you, but MobileMe Syncing is not ready yet. We are very interested in releasing this feature and in fact had already started development on it. Unfortunately it needed to be put on hold because we needed to make some critical improvements in 1Password 3 to help our CS team stay afloat. Now that we're mostly back on our feet we had planned to continue development on MobileMe but you probably saw the recent keynote from Apple and with the iPad coming in 53 days we have to focus all our resources on iPad development to be ready on time.

The change in direction is not an excuse but I felt you would appreciate full disclosure that the iPad announcement caused a lot of changes in our planning.

[/quote]

I was trying to be honest and explain that there were new external forces that would put pressure on our development team. It didn't help much, I'm afraid, as it basically broke down into an argument about priorities and us being called lazy.

Later, on [url=http://support.agilewebsolutions.com/showthread.php?19643-MobileMe-Sync&p=111515#post111515]03-13-2010 I wrote this[/url]:

[quote=dteare]

I just wanted to post an update on MobileMe syncing and our iPad development plans. A few weeks ago I mentioned in this thread that iPad would influence things, and it certainly has. Thankfully it has influenced things in a good way!

With iPad, MobileMe syncing is even more important as it enables completely automatic syncing and will save users from needing to manually sync each device individually. For example, with the current setup a user with an iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch would have to sync each one manually. MobileMe and syncing "to the cloud" will make things much simpler.

We're working hard to get MobileMe syncing built into the first release of 1Password for iPad and I think you'll love what you see.

[/quote]

Obviously I was overly optimistic and even worse, I was so exhausted after getting iPad out the door that I never came back to update this thread afterwards. The reason for the optimism at that time was well founded, but sadly there were some other technical hurdles that got in the way.

The fact remains that we are very interested in getting MobileMe working but I am going to learn from these mistakes and I am going to start being more like Apple and answer every problem report and feature request with one of these three responses:

[list=1]

[*] This is a known issue.

[*] I have verified this and have opened an issue with the development team for them to consider in a future release.

[*] We cannot comment on future development.

[/list]

I never wanted to do this and preferred being completely open about our development schedule, but I think sjk said it very well:

[quote name='sjk']Other developers have learned (sometimes the rough way) that it's often in everyone's better interest not to pre-announce products/features and speculative release schedules.[/quote]

He's right. We are hurting our users and ourselves by being so open about future plans. We have learned this (unfortunately the hard way) and we will no longer speculate on release schedules. There are just too many moving parts, especially external ones, that we just cannot control.

Again, I am sorry we have not been able to deliver on this promise.

Meku · July 2010

[quote name='roustem']The MobileMe sync is half-way done but with so many new developments (iPad, iOS 4, Safari Extensions, Chrome, Dropbox API) it is not our top priority.

I do not think you will see MobileMe sync completed in near future (this year). [/QUOTE]

I honestly loved 1Password 2 and was hoping 3 would be even better. However, until now 1Password 3 has been less useful for me then the old version. MobileMe sync worked for me great and I was really expecting it for version 3 also. Regarding you comments of not providing MobileMe sync in 2010 I feel cheated. Even now you still claim in your 1Password Pro (iPhone) app store description that MobileMe sync is coming soon. Your new developments like iPad, Chrome, Dropbox, Android, Windows etc. are irrelevant. If you don't have sufficient capacity to provide the functionality that you promised for you customers then you shouldn't start new developments in the first place. Regarding you status as respectable developer, I truly believe its lost for ever. You are the only software developer that I know who is selling software with a promise of adding new features (MobileMe sync) and same time telling that you have no intention doing that. Honestly, that statement might sound harsh but lets face it, its the truth. There is one thing I don't get. You guys feel like the good guys who want to make great software but at the same time it seems you try to become the least reliable software developer Mac community has ever seen. Why? Don't you feel like you have obligation to stand behind you promises?

roustem · July 2010

[quote name='Meku']I honestly loved 1Password 2 and was hoping 3 would be even better. However, until now 1Password 3 has been less useful for me then the old version. MobileMe sync worked for me great and I was really expecting it for version 3 also. Regarding you comments of not providing MobileMe sync in 2010 I feel cheated. Even now you still claim in your 1Password Pro (iPhone) app store description that MobileMe sync is coming soon. Your new developments like iPad, Chrome, Dropbox, Android, Windows etc. are irrelevant. If you don't have sufficient capacity to provide the functionality that you promised for you customers then you shouldn't start new developments in the first place. Regarding you status as respectable developer, I truly believe its lost for ever. You are the only software developer that I know who is selling software with a promise of adding new features (MobileMe sync) and same time telling that you have no intention doing that. Honestly, that statement might sound harsh but lets face it, its the truth. There is one thing I don't get. You guys feel like the good guys who want to make great software but at the same time it seems you try to become the least reliable software developer Mac community has ever seen. Why? Don't you feel like you have obligation to stand behind you promises?[/QUOTE]

Thank you for the feedback.

I made a mistake by adding "MobileMe sync coming soon" to the 1Password touch description. We know that it is very important for our users to have the OTA (over-the-air, in-the-clould) sync. When we started working on OTA sync, MobileMe/WebDAV was the only way to achieve it and I didn't see any other options at the time.

When Dropbox API become available, I decided to pause working on MobileMe sync and implement Dropbox sync instead, for the following reasons:

- Overwhelming majority of our customers use Dropbox to sync their Macs and PCs. Without Dropbox support on iPhone, they would have to use both MobileMe and Dropbox sync at the same time.

- Implementing MobileMe sync requires changes on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. Dropbox sync requires changes on iPhone/iPad only, as Mac and Windows applications get it "for free". In fact, we spent less time adding full Dropbox support to iPhone app compared to the time we spent adding MobileMe support to the Mac version so far.

- In our early development tests, Dropbox syncing was about 50-100% faster than MobileMe.

I do not like the idea of "placing all the eggs in the same basket" and would love to add additional syncing options. However, at this time our focus is to make sure that Dropbox sync works perfectly on all 4 platforms (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android).

I understand that you already use MobileMe for everything and hate the idea of adding an extra service to your system and really want us to implement MobileMe syncing in Mac, iPhone (and probably Windows and Android) apps. Unfortunately, it will not happen in near future. Dropbox sync is already available (will be available on iPhone and Android soon) and it works very well, please give it a try (I personally use Dropbox for file syncing and MobileMe for everything else).

Proguy94 · July 2010

MobileMe sync would be awesome sorry I have been a bit absent in the beta testing it gets a little hard to follow sometimes.

KraetzichriZ · July 2010

OMG Dropbox Support landet.

I installed Dropbox on my Mac and my iPhone just for this feature.

I manually (!!) moved my Keychain to my Dropbox folder (this is what you call "great user experience with dropbox? haha!) and updated my iOS Apps.

Activated Sync via Dropbox on my iPhone and iPad. And after 30 minutes, the devices are sending the whole time data to the cloud. Changes on any device are not synced trough the devices.

Then I read this Thread: [url]http://support.agilewebsolutions.com/showthread.php?25307-DROPBOX-SYNC-Keeps-sending-whole-keychain-again-and-again&highlight=Dropbox[/url]

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

This is your "great working sync solution"?

I wasted again hours to restore everything and switch back to WLAN Sync.

Great. I'm very... disappointed. :@:@:@

Cheers,

Chris

Nik · July 2010

[quote name='KraetzichriZ']I manually (!!) moved my Keychain to my Dropbox folder (this is what you call "great user experience with dropbox? haha!) and updated my iOS Apps.[/quote]

It is not necessary to manually move your data file:

[url]http://help.agile.ws/1Password3/configure_dropbox_on_mac.html[/url]

[quote]Activated Sync via Dropbox on my iPhone and iPad. And after 30 minutes, the devices are sending the whole time data to the cloud.[/quote]

Sorry about this. This is a bug that we found affects customers who are not in North America. It is related to the format of the time/date stamp on your files. We have submitted an update to the App Store that we believe fixes this issue.

project2501 · August 2010

Now that dropbox sync started working, how about MobileMe support!

Suggestion MobileMe Sync

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