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(Archived) [Fixed] "This note contain some unsupported formatting" Data Loss Tracking Thread


GollyJer

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There is a bug that causes data loss when editing a note with unsupported formatting.

[update on july 27] I believe the bug stems from the first time a note with unsupported formatting gets edited it is being cached on the device. From that point forward it does not get updated when synced even though the "read only" view does get updated.

Testing Environment

Evernote for Android Build 20, Version 4.1(public)

Evernote for Windows 4.5.8.7720 (267728)

Evernote Web Client

Problem

  1. From the Windows client create a note with the word test and a Divider Line below it, then sync.
  2. Sync the Android client and open the note.
  3. Click Edit the immediately click Done. (Android will say "Note not changed")
  4. Edit the note in Windows, add the word test under the divider line, and sync.
  5. Sync the Android client and open the note. It shows the most recent version from step 4.
  6. Click edit and the original version, from step 1, will pop up for editing. If you don't notice and edit anyway the changes overwrite the note from step 3.

I've reproduced the problem using Windows & Android and Web Client & Android. I don't have a Mac but I'm guessing this is purely an Android issue.

Until this is fixed there is only one way to proceed:

- Use unsafe formatting in notes that will never be edited on Android.

- Avoid unsafe formatting for notes that require Android editing.

For Android editable notes that avoid data loss stay away from the following "Unsafe to Use" formatting.

Unsafe to Use

  • Indented checkboxes
  • Attachments
  • Divider line
  • Tables
  • Hyperlinks

Safe to Use

  • Non-indented checkboxes
  • Any text formatting
  • Bullets (indented or not)
  • Audio

Special Case

  • Text Aligning
    Alignment; left, center, right, justify, does not cause the unsupported format issue and shows up correctly when viewing a note on Android. However, the alignment is forced back to Left Justify when editing the note with no way to change it.

Hopefully this will help others. It was driving me crazy when trying to track workouts.

If you notice anything different than what's described please post. I'll keep this post updated as more information is available.

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This is also hitting me as well. I have started using evernote on my nexus7 and would get these weird "This note contain some unsupported formatting" lines in my notes. Thanks for posting this. This really help show exactly what the problem it.

I hope Evernote is going to fix these issues as having the ability to go back and forth on Windows to my nexus7 is really powerful, but not if you loose formatting, and or it become difficult to work on android.

Is this problem on the list of issues to be fixed? I know you can't give an ETA, but knowing this will be looked at would help.

thanks

corban

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A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO GOLLYJER~!

Your extensive and detail report will greatly help all of us here. =)

And thanks to CORBAN for submitting a ticket. =D

I hope the dev take this seriously and iron out the bugs asap.

I purchase the premium in hopes that evernote replaced my other notetaking apps. Reading a lot of good reviews and use cases for a very long time before i made my decision. And, i expect it to work out all the time.

I understand software has bugs here and there but the note format & editing are THE CORE function of a note taking app. At the very least, people shouldnt lose their data.

Thanks for reading my complains, i just feel a bit frustrated.

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As we add more editing capabilities, every formatting will be supported.

We try to start with the most popular one, however it is more challenging to implement a text editor on a phone device than on a desktop, or web.

One precision about attachements, this is a tricky one. In line attachements are not supported yet on Android. However standard attachments are. So, the way you attach a file is important.

On mac, I usually select the attachement icon and select the file I want to attach. If you drag and drop the file inside the note, it will add it inline and this formatting is not supported.

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  • Level 5*

As we add more editing capabilities, every formatting will be supported.

We try to start with the most popular one, however it is more challenging to implement a text editor on a phone device than on a desktop, or web.

One precision about attachements, this is a tricky one. In line attachements are not supported yet on Android. However standard attachments are. So, the way you attach a file is important.

On mac, I usually select the attachement icon and select the file I want to attach. If you drag and drop the file inside the note, it will add it inline and this formatting is not supported.

This is great to know. Thanks sommuch for sharing this tip!

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Guest mrossk

The same here:

After adding unformatted text at the most top of a formatted note I sometimes suddenly see that I am editing a very old version of this note. This note was up to date before starting the editing of it! And this old version of the note is then uploaded to the evernote servers and overwrites my much newer note on all devices.

This has happend several times now.

The worst: When there are only a few changes since the last change, I have not detected that I have lost some data!

Please fix this Evernote. Until then I can't edit notes on my android device any more because it causes data loss without kowing it.

Sorry, but I must say that I am really very annoyed about this. For me this is the 3rd serious bug in your system where I silently loose some of my data (the others were the missing attachments and the losing of notes when making some special rearrangements of notebooks about one year ago [both solved in the meantime]).

Such things MUST NOT happen.

One more of such a serious bug and you will lose a big fan and customer because the silent losing of data in evernote takes place much too often to use it seriously.

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As we add more editing capabilities, every formatting will be supported.

We try to start with the most popular one, however it is more challenging to implement a text editor on a phone device than on a desktop, or web.

One precision about attachements, this is a tricky one. In line attachements are not supported yet on Android. However standard attachments are. So, the way you attach a file is important.

On mac, I usually select the attachement icon and select the file I want to attach. If you drag and drop the file inside the note, it will add it inline and this formatting is not supported.

xdelplanque, thank you very much for the response. Your explanation about why some formatting is supported and others aren't makes sense and is, I think, to be expected with a quickly iterating product. However, you didn't comment on the data loss issue. Are we to expect that the data loss problem will continue to occur on any note with unsupported formatting?

If so, notes on Android that contain unsupported formatting should not be editable. People are losing data without realizing it.

However if these are two separate issues, as I suspect they might be, it would be great to get some insight into whether or not you're trying to tackle the data loss bug separately from the editing feature.

Thanks.

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In line attachements are not supported yet on Android. However standard attachments are. So, the way you attach a file is important.

On mac, I usually select the attachement icon and select the file I want to attach. If you drag and drop the file inside the note, it will add it inline and this formatting is not supported.

Is this possible on Windows? I can't find a way to add an attachment that isn't inline
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I think this may be one in the same issue. While it might come from different "bugs" in the code, from a workflow standpoint it appears that if you have formatting that Android can't support, then you might be editing the wrong data the second time you try and edit your note on an android device. :-(

GollyJer: I agree that it sounds like if you find a note that has unsupported formatting, then you should not edit this on android. I think that if a pretty fair statement as it's pretty easy to reproduce.

corban

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@mrossk, @GollyJer,

The data loss, is indeed a separate issue.

Let me rephrase how you get this problem so I can get a clear idea of the issue:

1 - open from within the app, a note with some unsupported formatting.

> the note view displayed an update version of the note

> what specific formatting do you usually use?

2 - tap edit

> the note opens in edit mode, the content is updated

3 - select a section of the note to edit

> the content appears at the bottom for editing

> what specific content do you usually edit?

4 - tap done at the bottom to validate this change

> the content is updated in the note, the editing dialog is closed

5 - repeat this operation with different part of the note

> how many parts do you usually edit?

> do you observe that the content is updated each time?

6 - tap done in the note editor to send all your changes

> the editor closes, a note uploaded notification appear.

7 - reopen the edited note in view mode

> the changes don't appear

Please tell me also if you have reported this problem to customer support so I can collect the technical informations.

Thank you.

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I've updated the first post to reflect new information. I believe this might only be an issue when using the Windows Client in conjunction with Android.

As for the steps to reproduce, I'm not sure it can get more clear than the six items under the Problem section in the first post of this thread.

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I am hitting this on Windows as well. My workflow is core editing on a windows client and then on the run/meetings editing on my Nexus7 android app. Data loss is a big concern right now. I have started only doing text (no formatting) on the windows client so that I don't get the "This note contain some unsupported formatting" on the android side. So far on the few notes that I have tried this, I am not loosing any data, but I am also creating notes that are not very nice to look at due to the lack of any actual formatting.

thanks

corban

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I discovered this problem with my android client some time ago and therefore decided to only use formats supported by the android client such as bold and colour to make my notes look better. However I find that the android client will remove spaces between words on the same line that are bolded and non bolded and sometimes coloured and none coloured. Also sometimes on such notes it will just remove spaces between two normal format words. This is very annoying.

The safest way to edit on the android client is to not use any formatting but then we have very boring looking notes. There are so many bells and whistles on the Evernote product now and it looks fabulous but we need the very basic ability to be able to edit our notes with confidence that there will be no loss of data. Until these issue are resolved I just cannot use the android client to edit any notes created on my desktop as the majority of them include unsupported formatting.

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Guest mrossk

@xdelplanque

Post #1:

I have tried to reproduce it step by step from 1 to 6 but I could not reproduce the problem.

Post #11:

I am also talking here about data loss only because of editing and uploading an old note without knowing it. The data loss is a result of the editing bug. So, for me it is only one bug.

Now I have tried this test again. I have created a note on windows (the word "test" and then a separator line and a second line with "test"), synced it first in win and then on android until it arrived on android, go to edit mode in andorid, closed the edit mode, added in win second separator line and a third line with the word "test" and synced win and android again until the note arrived again on androiod but then suddenly when I go to edit mode on android I see the older version of the note with only 2 lines of "test".

This note was in an offline notebook. I think this is an important information because the content of the note is stored offline and this can produce the bug that the older version is shown.

To provoke the bug I have pressed the home button on android between the syncs (after waiting that each sync was fully complete) so Evernote goes to the background and then started it again. But I don't know if this has really something to do with this.

To reproduce exactly the steps from your post #12:

1 - open from within the app, a note with some unsupported formatting.

> the note view displayed an update version of the note

> what specific formatting do you usually use?

I use bullet lists and separator lines

2 - tap edit

> the note opens in edit mode, the content is updated

When the bug happens then at this point the note shows old content which is different than the content that is shown just before in the view-only mode.

Just when pressing the edit button, the content changes from the actual version ot the note to an old version of the note. Here is the bug!

3 - select a section of the note to edit

> the content appears at the bottom for editing

> what specific content do you usually edit?

For me this bug has never occured when editing a part of a note (example a part of a bullet list) but only when adding some unformatted text at the most top of the note.

4 - tap done at the bottom to validate this change

> the content is updated in the note, the editing dialog is closed

5 - repeat this operation with different part of the note

> how many parts do you usually edit?

> do you observe that the content is updated each time?

I usually edit only one part of the note and this new content is always correct updated. I see no bug at this place.

6 - tap done in the note editor to send all your changes

> the editor closes, a note uploaded notification appear.

7 - reopen the edited note in view mode

> the changes don't appear

All changes that I have done on android are OK. For me the bug exists only in step 2.

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Post #1:

I have tried to reproduce it step by step from 1 to 6 but I could not reproduce the problem.

Good catch mrossk. I updated Step 3. I forgot to add the part where the user clicks the Edit Button.

Now I have tried this test again. I have created a note on windows (the word "test" and then a separator line and a second line with "test"), synced it first in win and then on android until it arrived on android, go to edit mode in andorid, closed the edit mode, added in win second separator line and a third line with the word "test" and synced win and android again until the note arrived again on androiod but then suddenly when I go to edit mode on android I see the older version of the note with only 2 lines of "test".

Yup. This is the exact bug I'm seeing. Thanks for verifying.

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Guest mrossk

I lay on my sofa a few minutes ago and wanted to edit an evernote-note on my android again. Knowing about this bug and to be sure, I compared the text in view-mode with the text in edit-mode and there were huge differences. This note is a few months old. So this error is happening since a long time. I went through other notes and also saw differences between view-mode and edit-mode.

I deactivated offline-notebooks but this has not helped.

This means that many android-users are losing data day by day without knowing about it since a long time.

Evernote, you must make a public warning as soon as possible about this so that the users can go through their old notes and check if they are already affected with missing data. Even for the people that do not read this forum.

The case of the missing attachments in the last weeks has only affected specific beta-versions but this is the productive version.

You must infom your android-users about this otherwise you act irresponsible.

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Guest mrossk

Today I have completely uninstalled Evernote on Android and deleted the whole Evernote-folder (many hundred files because of the offline-notebooks).

After this I have installed Evernote again and configured all offline-nobebooks again. After a few hours of downloading all offline-notes I made a further test:

The bug in my post #16 is still reproducable so you can exclude a corrupted database as a reason for this bug.

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Guest mrossk

I know that Corban had already made a ticket, but at this time the step by step description in post #1 in this forum was not complete (in the meantime GollyJer has completed it) so I am not sure if evernote was able to reproduce the bug at this time.

So in the meantime I also made a support ticket (#16051-128697) and described them step by step how to reproduce this bug.

The last answer from support today: "We thank you for your troubleshooting, we're investigating this issue."

So I hope that we can edit our notes on andoid again soon.

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Thank you all for the very precious information.

I don't think the beta release fixes this problem. However, we are starting the technical investigation now.

You've already done a big part of the job, so it should be a high priority. It should be fixed soon.

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Thank you all for the very precious information.

I don't think the beta release fixes this problem. However, we are starting the technical investigation now.

You've already done a big part of the job, so it should be a high priority. It should be fixed soon.

Awesome news. Thanks for the fast response! We greatly appreciate it.

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Hi Guys~! I have some free time today, so i made a test.

Following the step by step from the OP, i am able to reproduce the bug. So, the bug is still there & the recent update has not neutralized yet.

I APOLOGIZED for the excited confusion on my earlier post. Just wanna confirm IF the bug is gone so i can use Evernote without any doubt/phobia of data lost.

Thank you~! looking forward for the next update. :-)

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btw, can anyone or mod help add a [bUG] tag for this topic?

I found out that editing using only 1 platform works. Either you edit using only the Android or only the windows.

Anyone here using a Mac care to test if this bug present in Mac-Android environment?

If Mac-Android doesnt have this bug, it means it only live in Windows-Android. So both platforms need to be check for incompatibility.

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Guest mrossk

  1. I installed the update
  2. I could not even open my formatted note any more, I only got an error message.
  3. I deleted all formattings in this note on my windows computer, synced windows and then android and it works.
  4. I added all formattings again on my windows computer, synced windows and android and then the opening of the note again caused an error message
  5. I deleted all formattings again on my windows computer, synced windows and then android and it worked again
  6. I added each single formatting one by one in windows to find out which causes the problem and after each one I synced windows and then android and tested editing. Now even after the last added formatting it works.

Since I can't test every single note on my androiod device, this evening I will deinstall evernote on android, delete the complete database and install evernote again to be sure that there are no issues because of already broken notes that are stored in the current android database.

I recommend this to all users to be sure that all notes are ok on your device when you access them at some time in the future.

Thanks for fixing this bug.

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Guest mrossk

In the meantime (only to be sure!) I have deinstalled evernote, deleted the whole evernote-folder, rebootet, installed evernote again, downloaded all offline-notes again and everything works fine and fast.

Good work xdelplanque.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

@mrossk, @GollyJer,

The data loss, is indeed a separate issue.

Let me rephrase how you get this problem so I can get a clear idea of the issue:

1 - open from within the app, a note with some unsupported formatting.

> the note view displayed an update version of the note

> what specific formatting do you usually use?

2 - tap edit

> the note opens in edit mode, the content is updated

3 - select a section of the note to edit

> the content appears at the bottom for editing

> what specific content do you usually edit?

4 - tap done at the bottom to validate this change

> the content is updated in the note, the editing dialog is closed

5 - repeat this operation with different part of the note

> how many parts do you usually edit?

> do you observe that the content is updated each time?

6 - tap done in the note editor to send all your changes

> the editor closes, a note uploaded notification appear.

7 - reopen the edited note in view mode

> the changes don't appear

Please tell me also if you have reported this problem to customer support so I can collect the technical informations.

Thank you.

Post #1:

I have tried to reproduce it step by step from 1 to 6 but I could not reproduce the problem.

Good catch mrossk. I updated Step 3. I forgot to add the part where the user clicks the Edit Button.

Now I have tried this test again. I have created a note on windows (the word "test" and then a separator line and a second line with "test"), synced it first in win and then on android until it arrived on android, go to edit mode in andorid, closed the edit mode, added in win second separator line and a third line with the word "test" and synced win and android again until the note arrived again on androiod but then suddenly when I go to edit mode on android I see the older version of the note with only 2 lines of "test".

Yup. This is the exact bug I'm seeing. Thanks for verifying.

I lay on my sofa a few minutes ago and wanted to edit an evernote-note on my android again. Knowing about this bug and to be sure, I compared the text in view-mode with the text in edit-mode and there were huge differences. This note is a few months old. So this error is happening since a long time. I went through other notes and also saw differences between view-mode and edit-mode.

I deactivated offline-notebooks but this has not helped.

This means that many android-users are losing data day by day without knowing about it since a long time.

Evernote, you must make a public warning as soon as possible about this so that the users can go through their old notes and check if they are already affected with missing data. Even for the people that do not read this forum.

The case of the missing attachments in the last weeks has only affected specific beta-versions but this is the productive version.

You must infom your android-users about this otherwise you act irresponsible.

Today I have completely uninstalled Evernote on Android and deleted the whole Evernote-folder (many hundred files because of the offline-notebooks).

After this I have installed Evernote again and configured all offline-nobebooks again. After a few hours of downloading all offline-notes I made a further test:

The bug in my post #16 is still reproducable so you can exclude a corrupted database as a reason for this bug.

Hi guys. I'm experiencing the same problem on my Nexus 7. Strangely it works like a charm on my HTC Desire S running a custom ROM. Today Evernote versions is 4.2.2 public on Android. I can confirm it doesn't matter if notes are created on mac or windows (I use both). In addition to this, the solution gave in post #12 is not appliable in my case as the edit mode crashes as you can see in this video I've uploaded

I've tried to uninstall Evernote, delete app data, reinstall, resync, check/uncheck use offline searching in advanced settings. No way. The bug is still there.

Unsupported formattings BUG is really frustrating as web clipped notes (clipped through Evernote's own browser extensions) appears as notes containing web info and so the unsupported formatting.

This BUG is still alive, please fix it.

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Thank you. But I've already thought about this workaround but I can't do it on-the-go neither I can convert all my notes (700+) just to be sure.

In addition, I Mac OS X version of the client lacks this option. I have to use the OS built-in text editor.

Hope they fix this soon, or at least add 'paste as text' option into the mac client.

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Hi guys. I'm experiencing the same problem on my Nexus 7. Strangely it works like a charm on my HTC Desire S running a custom ROM. Today Evernote versions is 4.2.2 public on Android. I can confirm it doesn't matter if notes are created on mac or windows (I use both). In addition to this, the solution gave in post #12 is not appliable in my case as the edit mode crashes as you can see in this video I've uploaded

I've tried to uninstall Evernote, delete app data, reinstall, resync, check/uncheck use offline searching in advanced settings. No way. The bug is still there.

Unsupported formattings BUG is really frustrating as web clipped notes (clipped through Evernote's own browser extensions) appears as notes containing web info and so the unsupported formatting.

This BUG is still alive, please fix it.

This thread was not about unsupported formatting causing crashes; it was about data LOSS when editing unsupported formatting notes on the Android client. That issue was fixed.

I'd suggest starting another thread specific to your issue which is "Editing notes with Unsupported Formatting on Nexus 7 causes crash."

That way you'll get more feedback and others with the same issue will find the thread more easily.

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  • 5 months later...

We have just released a new update, v4.1.4, which should fix this problem. Thanks for your help.

the unsupported formatting issue is still happening even now in version 5.01

i cant use divider line or indented checkbox in android

at least give us a list of what formatting to avoid when using android

i didn't try resyncing and see if data loss happens but the inability to use divider line is already a big frustration

i can't see how the 4.1.4 update fixed it am i missing something?

i also tried uninstalling and deleting the database then reinstalling but still wont work

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We have just released a new update, v4.1.4, which should fix this problem. Thanks for your help.

the unsupported formatting issue is still happening even now in version 5.01

i cant use divider line or indented checkbox in android

at least give us a list of what formatting to avoid when using android

i didn't try resyncing and see if data loss happens but the inability to use divider line is already a big frustration

i can't see how the 4.1.4 update fixed it am i missing something?

i also tried uninstalling and deleting the database then reinstalling but still wont work

 

mohamed,

Check out the bottom of the first post in this thread for my unofficial list of supported/unsupported Android formatting.  I haven't tested in 5.x but I doubt anything has changed.

 

Jeremy

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Why does the headline of this thread stat [fixed]? Seems to be anything but!

 

I am currently using EN in a context where I have to make notes in different contexts and on different machines and it didn't take me long to run into this proplem. I will surely not renew my contract (which runs for another 10 months), if the formatting problem doesn't get fixed.

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You say the problem with unsupported formatting is not a bug???

 

After quite some years of experience in software development, I have never encountered a client that would agree with your point of you. And being responsible for delivery, I wouldn't either. If you build a software allowing formatting of text, this has to work correctly. And if your software allows editing across devices, this has to work too.

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  • Level 5*

You say the problem with unsupported formatting is not a bug???

 

After quite some years of experience in software development, I have never encountered a client that would agree with your point of you. And being responsible for delivery, I wouldn't either. If you build a software allowing formatting of text, this has to work correctly. And if your software allows editing across devices, this has to work too.

Just to clarify -- you are saying that you experienced data loss due to unsupported formatting? Or did it just crash?

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/27914-fixed-this-note-contain-some-unsupported-formatting-data-loss-tracking-thread/?p=163565

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Hi All,

 

I wanted to let you know that we've started working on improving the cross-platform editing experience. 

We are adding native editing support for every styles offered on other clients (includes horizontal rule, tables, encrypted text ...). 

Hopefully, the "web editor" should not occur unless you try to edit something really complex such as a web clip. 

It will be available in beta soon. 

https://plus.google.com/communities/104510054128618368971

 

Thanks. 

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