First movie rental a bust

I rented a movie but it would not download. I was charged but never downloaded. Now it is no longer showing as ready to download. Are refunds possible? How?

You clicked Store>Check for Available Downloads?
If this does not get it, then report the issue:
How to report an issue with Your iTunes Store purchase

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Problems downloading and watching first movie rental from iTunes

I wanted to try renting a movie through iTunes tonight and it has been constant problems on my Windows 7 64-but PC home theater PC with iTunes 10.5. I was going to rent it through Amazon Video on Demand, but they didn't offer the movie in HD on a PC (I would need a Ruku box, Tivo or Blu Ray player to get Amazon Video in HD). I have used Amazon SD and Netflix HD streaming on the PC with no issues, so it is not normal to have problems streaming video with this PC or the internet connection here.
The iTunes download was indicating it will take 2 hours and I let it buffer about 30 minutes on my 15Mb connection. Over 1 gig is cached.
I can only play the movie a few minutes at a time before the movie playback and download both stop with unknown error -39 and I have to manually resume the download every few minutes and restart the movie or else iTunes freezes completely and I have to kill it and restart it and I have also rebooted the PC.
The 24 hour rental countdown has already started since I have already attempted to start watching the movie and it doesn't look like I'm even going to have time to finish watching the movie now. Every time iTunes crashes and I relaunch it, I now have to re-enter my iTunes password just to get into iTunes.
This has been a complete nightmare and waste of time and waste of the $4.99 rental fee.
Are there any fixes to these issues?

I waited for the download to complete and now when I play the movie there is no sound!!
The movie had sound before even though I could only play a few minutes of the movie at a time.
I have sound everywhere else on the PC including the music in iTunes. Only the movie playback has no sound.
I have tried rebooting, reinstalling iTunes and I even installed Quicktime because an old thread about iTunes movie rentals playing with no sound suggested installing Quicktime separately, but it has not helped.
This is a very poor experience renting movies through iTunes.
I can't find a way to subscrive to answere to this question without subscribing to email alerts fot every post in this forum.

First movie rental - how to improve next go around....

just curious what you guys are finding for average amount of time spent downloading - my first experience was about 90 minutes. Yikes. Further, didnt even get to watch the whole movie, battery died mid stream. Fun.
Not sure how well this rental thing is going over, but I love the idea... just need to figure out how to make it work.
I only have free WIFI access these days, as in coffee shops. My MBP is 802.11g capable, thats it.

Take a look at this page:
iTunes Store: Download times for purchases will vary
It should give you an idea as to what sort of download times you can expect.

Transferring movie rentals/purchases to other devices

I just downloaded my first movie rental to my iMac. I think I can transfer it to my Macbook, iPod, iPhone, etc. And I believe it can only reside on one device at a time. I just can't figure out how to transfer it. Is it possible? Thanks, and would this apply to rentals as well as purchases? Thanks!

this has worked for some rentals:
connect your device to your computer.
In iTunes, select your device (below Devices):
Click the Movies or TV Shows tab, depending upon the item you rented.
Select the rented item.
Click Move.After you transfer a rental, it’s removed from your iTunes library.
Some movies and TV episodes in the iTunes Store are available for rental in HD-quality format. HD rentals can only be transferred from your computer to iOS devices capable of viewing HD content. If you rent an HD movie with an Apple TV, you can’t transfer it to another computer or device.
A rented item expires 30 days after you rent it or 24 hours after you begin playing it, whichever comes first. Expired rentals are deleted automatically.
Note: These terms apply to U.S. rentals. Rental terms vary among countries.

RE: movie rentals and downloaded data usage

I purchased my first movie rental the other day. The 1.5gb it took to download has not appeared in my data usage for the month with my service provider. Am I to assume that my movie rental only cost me $3.99 and not the $25 worth gb's it took to download as well? This will make me very relieved.

That's not something Apple have any control over.
Do you have an alternative you can swap to?
I use to have unlimited download capacity but it's been capped at 100GB because og the small number of selfish users who were downloading torrents etc 24/7 - BUT if they had an unlimited service surely 24/7 downloads wouldn't break an unlimited service! All these companies want to have their cake and eat it.
The other unlimited rtactic is to give unlimited downloads but at very slow speeds limiting monthly usage anyway.
In many instances data caps will prevent uptake of video on demand/rentals regardless of who's providing them.
AC

Charged 1.81€ above and beyond movie rental fee: Any idea why?

Above the rental charge, and a day before the charge was billed, our credit card was billed 1.81. I'm not he most patient websurfer but I did look all over and didn't find any reference to this fee. Can someone inform me about this (I hesitate to think it was iTunes' mistake -- ha!)?
Another question, since this was our first movie rental. After starting the download and the note tha it would take 5 hours to download, the 48 hour rental time began to count down -- even while we were to wait 5 hours! Is that fair?
Thanks!
Joseph

I'm having this issue as well, very frustrating. I'll start out with 4gb or so of available storage, and then throughout the day it disappears. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but invariably I end up getting a Full Storage message.
If a reboot the phone, I end up going back to 4.2 gb or so of available storage, only to start the whole process over.
I have a second iphone for work, configured almost exactly the same (ATT for problem phone, Verizon for work phone), but none of the same problems. it is not on 7.1.1, it's on 7.0.6.
I have plenty of Cloud Space available.
I do have iTunes Match turned on, so I'm going to try and turn if off.
(phone started at 4.2 gb. In the three minutes I've typed this and went to turn off iTunes Match, down to 4.0gb)
I did a reset of the phone yesterday. Did a Full Backup to my desktop, Reset the Phone, and the restored from the Full Backup. Same issue, though I did appear to regain 2 gb (I was at 2 gb of available storage before reset, 4.2gb after).
(currently at 3.6gb of available storage - phone restarted with Safari open, so I went and closed it)
Would be fantastic to figure out what is going on. We're already on the fence looking...this definitely isn't helping Apple's cause.

HT1577 how do a get a refund on a ridiculously slow downloading rented movie for my apple tv dispite a 5mb/sec down load speed? my first experience with appletv movie rental. no good. rented at 4:30pm. still waiting for standard def movie to finish at 8:1

how do a get a refund on a ridiculously slow downloading rented movie for my apple tv dispite a >5mb/sec down load speed? my first experience with appletv movie rental. no good. rented at 4:30pm. still waiting for standard def movie to finish at 8:10pm. Not good enough.

Thanks for the pointers folks. Yeah, 1.5GB is pretty poor isn't it? There are other suppliers, but you have to get a their phone line installed to access the internet so it's an £85 setup fee plus a day off work for a guy to come round and drill a hole in your wall before you even get to the monthly costs.
Don't get me wrong though - I'm certainly not an Apple basher, but am equally frustrated with both them and the ISP.
Virgin Media spend all kinds of money advertising their broadband as the fastest in the UK, but don't tell you (up front anyway) that you'll be cut off if you actually try and use it.
Apple on the other hand carry on with their 'it just works' mantra, but with Apple TV this only applies if you meet certain criteria (again, not mentioned up front).
I guess it aint a biggie, as i was gifted my Apple TV, and love all the other stuff it does, but from the number of posts on this forum can see that there's a lot of angry customers out there who want explanations as to why they're having similar problems to me.
Will be very interesting to see if Apple release any kind of software update that turns the flash drive from a buffer to permanent storage, to at least ease some of the pain...
Message was edited by: McGinty

HT1657 How do I Sync a movie rental with my iPhone?

How do I Sync a movie rental from my computer with my iPhone?

Welcome to the Apple community.
You cannot transfer any content to the Apple TV 2 or Apple TV 3, you can transfer rentals to the first generation Apple TV however,using the information provided on this page.

Movie Rentals and Purchases on IPad - What's wrong with this?

Bought my very first Apple product...(IPad 64G WiFi only) last week.
I intended to use it just to keep me busy reading, watching movies, playing games, on all the long flights to Europe and Asia that I take.
So yesterday I excitedly set up an ITunes account, and downloaded 4 movie rentals, and purchased one other movie (Angels and Demons). All HD. I just figure I'd let it run all night and I'd see the movies the next morning.
The rentals all appear to have downloaded, and they show up in the videos section. HOWEVER, they are ALL marked "Expires in 17 hours". Never started watching any of them, why are they already set to expire? The rental info section of Itunes says I have 30 days to start watching, then 24 hours after that til they expire.
As for the purchased movie, th it appeared stuck on the "tap to retry" icon, which I did several times, with repeated errors, until the download icon simply disappeared and no sign of the dowload status or the actual movie anywhere.
I DID get billed for all of these. This is like 40 bucks worth of stuff.
Everyone who uses MAC stuff always brags about how great it is, how excellent customer service is, how things just "work", etc.
Color me WAY not impressed. No answers to my emails sent through ITunes help (yes, I checked spam folder) and no movies for my flight to China this weekend.
Any suggestions on things to change to make it work better next time? OR just buy a **** portable DVD player for 400 bucks less than an Ipad?

HI Jeffrey and welcome...
Make certain the time and date are correct on your PC.
Click Start and then click Control Panel.
Click "Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options" and then click Date and Time.
Click the Date & Time tab.
Make sure that the date and time settings are configured to use the current date and time and then click OK.
Make sure you are running the latest version of iTunes. http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Check the Firewall.
From the Start menu, choose Control Panel.
If the Control Panel is in Classic View, skip to step 4.
On Windows 7 and Vista, click Security; on Windows XP, click Security Center.
Click Windows Firewall.
On Windows 7 and Vista, click Change Settings; if asked for permission by Windows, click Continue; make sure the “Block all incoming connections” option is *not selected.*
Click the Exceptions tab.
Check the iTunes box.
Click OK.
You can report problems to Apple via the iTunes store. Launch iTunes. Select iTunes Store on the left. On the right side of that window select your account name. In the next window click: Purchase History then click: Report a Problem.
More support options here: http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/contact/
Carolyn

Itunes Movie Rental Geographical Limitations and Offline Access

I live in Canada and will be travelling to Vegas next month. I'd like to be well prepared with some movie rentals through itunes on my macbook air.
My concern is, would there be any geographical limitations in viewing movies in USA that have already been previously rented and downloaded in Canada from the Canada Itunes store?
In simpler terms, If I rented a movie from iTunes Canada (while physically being in Canada), would it be viewable while in USA?
Also, would I have to have an internet connection to watch it even though it's been dowloaded in advance?
I've read through many boards (though there has been no clear answer) that many have been having issues playing movies without first having an internet connection.
I've read that some iPad and iPod users report that there are no issues with watching rentals without any internet connection to begin with, but I have yet to hear a macbook user report the same.
I was wondering if I could get a certain answer as to whether or not an itunes rental could be played WITHOUT ANY internet connection whatsoever to begin with on a MacBook Air.
Much thanks in advance!

Welcome to the Apple community.
A number of people have reported similar issues recently, many appear to have found a discrepancy of some kind in their account settings and making changes to these settings or simply resetting them has resolved the matter.
Check your account details are correct, check that you are using the correct details for Location, Region and Time Zone. You may want to change these settings and then change them back to see if that helps.
You might also try logging out of and then back into your iTunes account (Settings > iTunes Store > Apple ID’s > Sign Out) and restarting your router. (Some have reported that after doing this, they need to check for rentals even though it may report that there aren’t any, after which rentals once again appear in the ‘movies’ feature)
Rentals should appear under their own heading in the ‘Movies’ feature, you might also check at Settings > iTunes Store > Check For Rentals.

Apple TV (v2) and movie rentals - my experiences, for what it's worth...

I’ve been reading a lot of posts over the past couple of days about problems streaming rented movies, and thought i’d share my experiences as i’ve had a couple of days of head scratching and frustration trying to watch one of my own:
I unwrapped an Apple TV v2 at the weekend, which was a gift form a friend, and tried it out by renting a movie. This was yesterday:
Now I’m a Virgin media customer in the UK, with 10MB broadband (wired), which I figured would be fast enough to easily stream HD video - and sure enough my rental started up and played fine. For about 30 mins...
After this it froze, and gave me the dreaded ‘loading’ dialogue, which showed 7 hours as my wait, and it got longer as the day went on - not shorter.
I gave up, and decided to come back to it later, which of course was a foolish move, as everything that had been buffered was erased and i was back at square one.
I then tried again today and had the exact same problem. After turning on, and being pleasantly surprised to see that my HD rental began streaming perfectly with almost no delay, I was again kicked off after about half an hour.
So i decided to look at my ISP’s terms and conditions, and sure enough there are cap’s on my data traffic of 1.5gb during the day, and 750mb in the evening (until 9pm). Exceed either of these and your traffic speed is cut back by 75% for 5 hours.
So i did some digging, and found that the average HD movie file size is about 4gb. This means that it’s impossible for me to stream and watch a film in one sitting, as i’ll never have enough uncapped bandwidth to stream the whole movie in one hit.
Now some folks have talked about getting ahead of the game, and beginning a download ahead of time (like first thing in the morning) so that by the evening a film is waiting for you no matter how long the download time. But even if this works, you run the risk of losing the buffered file by hitting the wrong button on your apple remote. This to me is unacceptable.
So lets drill down to the details here:
Problem 1: the manner Apple TV v2 stores video. I’m no technical expert, but understand that the latest Apple TV has no hard drive - rather an 8GB flash drive. This would be enough to download and store an HD movie as a semi-permanent file, but Apple TV v2 doesn’t do this - it just uses it as a streaming buffer, which is cleared out periodically, and is easy to accidentally lose.
Problem 2: my ISP just won’t allow the amount of data transfer required to stream an HD movie without capping my download speed. Not between 9am and 9pm anyway (i’m going to see if i can stream the end of my film later without the beggars cutting me off).
Problem 2a (more of a gripe): Apple TV doesn’t warn you that the file you’re about to stream when you rent a movie will very likely trigger your ISP’s bandwidth throttling policy. It might be in their small print, but it should be there in big letters at the point of sale, just before you hit ‘buy’.
The Solution: There isn’t a satisfactory one for me really. I don’t imagine I’ll be renting any more movies directly from Apple TV. It’s too pricey to take the risk that I won’t be able to watch it, so back to DVD for me.
Now I could rent or buy through iTunes, and then stream to Apple TV, as at least I’d have a ‘hard copy’ of the movie on my MacBook and would be safe in the knowledge that once i had downloaded the file i could watch it from start to finish without interruption - but this is also less than ideal. I can’t get HD movies from iTunes, i’d have to go through the ‘planning ahead’ phase of starting downloading early in the day, and there’s still no guarantee it wouldn’t trigger the bandwidth throttling if it was a long movie.
The only other solution would be to max out my broadband package, although currently the most expensive package (which costs double what i pay now) still had a 3.5gb cap, so could kick me off just as i’m near the end of the film. Plus, i don’t watch that many films to make the expense worthwhile.
To wrap up...
If you’re on a decent broadband connection that in theory should be able to handle HD streaming then check your ISP’s regs regarding throttling. Even with throttling on, YouTube, iPlayer and other similar sites still worked for me, as they’ll happily cope with reduced transfer speeds. Apple movie rentals won’t. This might explain why some can use these services perfectly at the same time as being unable to view their rental.
If you’re an occasional film watcher in a similar position to me, don’t bother with movie rentals. Unless you’re on an uncapped, unthrottled broadband package it’s unlikely you’ll be able to stream an HD movie in one hit due to the file size.
Back to Blockbuster Video for me i’m afraid. At least until we get NetFlix in the UK
Hope you have more luck than I did,
McGinty

Thanks for the pointers folks. Yeah, 1.5GB is pretty poor isn't it? There are other suppliers, but you have to get a their phone line installed to access the internet so it's an £85 setup fee plus a day off work for a guy to come round and drill a hole in your wall before you even get to the monthly costs.
Don't get me wrong though - I'm certainly not an Apple basher, but am equally frustrated with both them and the ISP.
Virgin Media spend all kinds of money advertising their broadband as the fastest in the UK, but don't tell you (up front anyway) that you'll be cut off if you actually try and use it.
Apple on the other hand carry on with their 'it just works' mantra, but with Apple TV this only applies if you meet certain criteria (again, not mentioned up front).
I guess it aint a biggie, as i was gifted my Apple TV, and love all the other stuff it does, but from the number of posts on this forum can see that there's a lot of angry customers out there who want explanations as to why they're having similar problems to me.
Will be very interesting to see if Apple release any kind of software update that turns the flash drive from a buffer to permanent storage, to at least ease some of the pain...
Message was edited by: McGinty

Can I watch an iTunes movie rental on a TV connected via mini displayport?

I'm not sure if there's been any headway with this, but I've got a mini displayport to HDMI adaptor on the way that I'm going to use to connect my MacBook Pro to my HDTV, effectively using the TV as an external monitor.
And of course, I want to watch some iTunes movie rentals on the TV instead of my laptop, but digging around the internet has shown that I might be facing an issue relating to the HDCP standard that would prevent me from being able to use my TV in this manner.
Is this still an issue? I have a fall 2009 MacBook Pro, which may be important, as I've read that Apple modified the mini displayport on the MacBooks in 2010.
Other than renting a movie as a sort of guinea pig with the possibility of being shot down and wasting my money, is there any way to know if this is going to work? Or is it simply a fact that any monitor/TV connected to my MacBook through the mini displayport is incompatible with HDCP, and I'm totally out of luck?
(Which, FYI Apple, is utter horse **** and is absolutely counter-productive to the notion of encouraging me to pay for digital entertainment.)
What are your thoughts, folks?

If your HDTV is HDCP compliant, you probably will have no problems. But you might want to read this information which while written a while back still, to the best of my knowledge, applies:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/16488
HDCP compliance is, from what I've read, rather a "rubber ruler" so even if your TV lists as being HDCP, it might or might not work correctly with your Mac. Testing with one movie first might avoid an expensive surprise.
As to your complaint to Apple, it probably wasn't up to Apple but instead was forced on them as part of the conditions by the content owners for licensing movies and shows to the iTunes Store. But feel free to comment to Apple via their feedback pages:
http://www.apple.com/feedback

ITunes Movie Rental Playback too dark

I have downloaded 100s of GBs of video podcasts, free TV programs, & other free video content from the iTunes Store since I obtained my Mac Mini (Early 2009 2.0GHz-4GB-320GB OSX.6.6, 'iTunes 10.2 (34)') in 11/2010, and they have all played admirably--no complaints--on my 14 year-old Samsung CRT SDTV (connected via Mini-DVI to VGA and this converter box [http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?cid=101&cp_id=10114&cs_id=1011407&pid=4724&seq=1&format=2]. In fact, ANY video (QT, Flash, Silverlight, etc.) I've played on it has displayed wonderfully...this is mainly what the Mini is used for.
(I should note that the Mini shipped with OS 10.6.3, but when I upgraded to 10.6.4, the overall display had a markedly richer, but darker quality to it--enhanced the desktop & apps' appearance, but (as many on these boards at the time decried) added darkness to all video. I went through convulsions re-calibrating the color using the provided system software, but could never quite get back to the as-purchased video luminance, and had to compromise with a "futzed" calibration. Subsequent OS updates have not changed this).
However, last night, for the very first time--and I've had an iTunes account practically since the iTunes Store opened--I decided to make a real purchase, and rent a movie while visiting some friends. I brought my Mini & cables over, plugged into their similar vintage Panasonic SDTV the same way as into mine: via RCA jacks; had done this before to show it off, and everything displayed fine without a hitch. We also both have FiOS broadband internet. Before renting, everything was great--I showed off photos using the OS screen saver, then played with Front Row, watched a Danish cooking show podcast (quality was near normal SDTV), so, everything was functioning properly.
I went into the iTunes Store and ordered the rental for "Inception" (no HD option, and I have iTunes configured to always play SD quality in prefs). Not five minutes after the download began (it said the 2GB+ file would d/l completely in 62 minutes), I double-clicked on the Inception icon to begin playing, and when the video window appeared, clicked the diagonal arrows to go into full screen. Boy, was this video dark! We might have thought it was intentionally produced that way, but one of my friends had seen the film in the theater, so I knew something was wrong. After half an hour of suffering (could not make out details at all--we were actually missing plot items), I paused the movie, and went into display prefs to try to lighten things up--didn't have time to do a full-blown re-calibration, but I unchecked "Show profiles for this display only" and picked a non-specific profile that was the brightest. It helped some, but at that point I figured I'd never rent from iTunes again...really a waste of $4 (beforehand, my friends were going to get the DVD from Redbox for $1, and told them the $3 savings would not be worth it).
After 90 minutes or so, I attempted to rewind a bit on the Apple Remote (old white version) as I had already done many times--but this time I supposed I held the "back" button too long, and the movie display disappeared completely. "WhaddidIdo?" So, I double-clicked the Inception icon in iTunes Rentals again, maximized to full screen, and was rather confused--the new movie window was SO BRIGHT AND FULL OF PREVIOUSLY UNSEEN DETAIL that I had trouble finding where I had originally intended to rewind to...the difference was so great, it seemed like a different film! "Don't touch anything else now!" my friends implored: "Leave it like that! That's how it looked in the theater."
WHUHAPPEND?
After the film's end, I stopped it just as the credits began, and went back to watch the beginning again...watched for half an hour or so to get what we had missed in the darkness. Then, being late, stopped it and shut down, intending to watch more of it at home before the file expired this evening. Despite the late hour, I couldn't resist hooking up my Mini at home again and trying it out. BUMMER. I could watch it, but it was back to the "dark ages." All my other videos--podcasts, streaming flash, whatever--all still look great. Just not this paid movie rental.
Any ideas, folks? I sure am skeptical now of purchasing ANYTHING ELSE on iTunes again.

Hi Epski
Let us know how you go as i'm having the same issue also. I upgraded to yosemite and itunes 12 at the same time and thought the OS upgrade was the issue. I downgraded back to Mavericks again (for lots of reasons i won't go in to here) thinking this would fix the problem but it didn't.
When i play any video content from itunes 12 in full screen goes dark once the controls fade away. QT, appletv or anything else plays them perfectly, as per itunes 11!
You don't have a Samsung TV by any chance do you?

Movie rental refund

I just purchased my first ever movie rental on iTunes and am MASSIVELY disappointed. My wife had never seen Back To The Future (I know! Where has she been!) so I paid the £3.49 and rented it for the night so we could watch it on our 42" plasma as we do with all the other films I download from other sources.
After waiting 45 mins for it to download, we played the first three seconds of the Universal logo before being told "you cannot play protected movies on this display" - this was the iPad error by the way NOT the plasma. The plasma is just a display and doesn't have a computer attached, any error messages were displayed on the iPad. Why can't I watch the film on the display I want to? If I had known this I would NEVER have paid and downloaded the movie.
How can I get my money back on this rental as I certainly am not going to show my wife her first Back To The Future experience on a tiny iPad screen!
If I can't get my money back then fair enough, good luck Apple, for the sake of £3.49 you have just lost a customer forever.

No. Once you accept the conditions to pay for the movie the that is it.

Movie Rentals + iTunes 7.6.1.9 = Wasted Money

Hi, I'm wondering if anybody else is experiencing the same problems I had with movie rentals. Non-rented movies play on my setup / installation. Upon renting a movie, and attempting to play it, iTunes will show the first frame of the video and play one second of the sound. At that point, iTunes locks up. The 24 hour period started to count down though. I sent Apple an email yesterday, but they have not responded yet. The movie has expired now.
This is caused by a bug in iTunes. Now that my iTunes has a movie rental, it places the movie rental in a separate category in the left of the iTunes window called "Rented Movies." When I click on that category, not selecting nor mousing over the movie rental window, but immediately clicking on the category "TV Shows," iTunes will now fail to play the TV Show video in the same failure mode that the movie rental movies fail. iTunes is only using about 10% of my CPU during the time it is locked up.

This was posted by Mimico Kid in another thread on the problem; perhaps it will help:
This can be a tricky problem to figure out since iTunes doesn't specify what file name is "invalid or too long" and there's no documentation on what determines if a file name is "invalid or too long".
We had one user report that he was able to use his/her keen eyesight to note the last file that appeared before the error message appeared and it turned out that file was the cause of his/her trouble.
If your eyesight isn't that keen, I'd suggest concentrating on the file name being too long possibility.
The entire directory path leading to the file is considered part of the file name so, as an example, iTunes' default settings might place a particular file at C:\Documents and Settings\ user name \My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\artist folder\album folder\whatever.m4a.
Is the directory path leading to your consolidated location much longer than that?
polydorus has suggested a way to look over your file names: Assuming your music is currently in the default location, make your way there with Windows Explorer and select List in the View menu menu and see if anything stands out as being unusual.

First movie rental a bust

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