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Invisible NPC FFI

The invisible woman of Cornelia, a glitch in the original Final Fantasy.

Various bugs and glitches appear in the Final Fantasy series, referring to programming errors that result in behavior not intended by the programmers. Glitches can be harmless and only manifest as incorrectly displayed graphics, or they can be hazardous and game-breaking, effectively ruining the player's save file.

"Glitching" is the practice of a player exploiting faults in a video game's programming to achieve tasks normally impossible if the game's script runs as intended, such as running through walls. Glitching can be used to gain an unfair advantage over other players in multiplayer games.

Appearances

Final Fantasy

Template:Sideicon The Intelligence bug and the Critical Hit bug are the most game-changing bugs in the original Final Fantasy. As a result, physical attacks are substantially more powerful on average than they would have been had the correct critical rates been used. The Intelligence stat is broken, meaning Red Mages are just as powerful spell-casters as White and Black Mages. The Critical Hit bug has been retained through various remakes, but the Intelligence bug has been fixed in recent releases.

The spells intended to raise effectiveness of physical attacks and evasion are glitched in the NES version, as is the item House, which saves the player's progress before it restores their spell charges. Several weapons are also bugged in the NES version, in which the weapons' intended special effects do not take effect.

Most of the glitches have been fixed in later remakes, apart from the Critical Hit bug, leading to the assumption it being a conscious choice by the programmers, and thus can no longer be viewed as a "glitch". The remakes also add some bugs of their own: in the Dawn of Souls Whisperwind Cove dungeon, the Angel Ring can never be obtained, as the map that is supposed to have it never appears.

Final Fantasy II

Template:Sideicon The Target-cancel bug was the most game-changing bug, but has been fixed since the Dawn of Souls release. The bug would allow the player to level up their weapons and magic effortlessly by simply choosing a command and then cancelling it straight away.

A similar exploit is to purposefully finish battles with low HP and MP to gain more of these stats; this isn't really a glitch as much as it is an exploit of the game's character development system. Most other bugs are only present in the original NES version, which had bugs related to equipment, spells and the dual wielding system with weapons that didn't work as intended.

Final Fantasy III

Template:Sideicon Various equipment and spell bugs were still present in the original NES release, where certain spells and weapons don't behave as intended and the player could duplicate spells. The biggest exploit in the original NES version is the Item upgrade glitch, which would potentially let players get access to the most powerful equipment right at the start of the game.

The DS version is an entire remake and thus doesn't suffer from the glitches present in the original version, but it has a whole new glitch of its own, the Item duplication glitch.

Final Fantasy IV

Template:Sideicon Final Fantasy IV has been released multiple times on different platforms, and smaller and bigger glitches can be found across versions. Final Fantasy IV was the first Final Fantasy game to feature the Active Time Battle system, but in the original SNES version, it didn't have the time bar indicating the characters' turn order. When this feature was added in the Game Boy Advance version, the system was bugged.

In the original SNES version, there are various bugs concerning equipment, ranging from weapon effects that never take effect, and the Avenger weapon that, among many other glitches, fails to update the character's attack stats to those in the Avenger weapon, retaining whatever stats the character had in the previously equipped weapon, to weapon duplication glitches.

An especially hazardous glitch is the possibility of losing the Lunar Whale airship on the Red Moon. Another fatal glitch is the Save glitch, which erases all save files on a cartridge.

The Quake spell is bugged in the Advance version, and always hits the enemy party even when the caster is confused. In the Advance version, when using the Smoke spell, the smoke particles may not appear over the whole party, although it doesn't affect the ability's success.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years

Template:Sideicon There is a glitch during the third battle against the Creator in which the Crystal, the item necessary to be able to attack the Creator, cannot be selected for use against the boss, and is instead used on the character attempting to use the item. The cause is unknown, but as this results in a battle where no party will attack it makes the battle never-ending. The only way to escape this is to reset the game.

Another glitch occurs when equipping the Protect Ring and the Fire Scarf. The Protect Ring resists elemental damage, while the Fire Scarf absorbs fire damage. The game can only keep track of one resistance tier per character with absorb taking priority. This is why the Cursed Ring when worn additionally with an elemental resisting item (e.g. Diamond Armor) results in the element being absorbed. The drawbacks of wearing the Cursed Ring balances this, but this was not accounted for when designing the Fire Scarf, thus equipping the scarf and Protect Ring simultaneously has the character absorb all elemental damage.

Final Fantasy V

Template:Sideicon Final Fantasy V doesn't have glitches that largely affect gameplay like in previous Final Fantasy games, but it does have its fair share of oversights. The most hazardous glitches are the ones where the player may permanently lose their airship, wind drake or black chocobo. If the player loses their airship, they are unable to finish the game. The encounter glitch lets the player avoid random encounters, and berserking Exdeath with the Kiss of Blessing bug lets the player skip fighting the true final boss, Neo Exdeath. Most of the glitches have been fixed in the GBA remake.

Final Fantasy VI

Template:Sideicon The Super Nintendo version has over one hundred different glitches and bugs that were found by hackers, both graphical and gameplay in nature. A few major bugs were not fixed until the Advance port: the Evade bug that makes the units' regular evasion stat do nothing, and the Vanish-Doom bug where the invisibility status overrides any unit's instant death immunity, making all enemies easily beatable by this method. One of the most notorious bugs in the whole Final Fantasy series is the Sketch bug that has various unpredictable results that rendered the use of the whole command risky until it was fixed in the Advance version.

The game has a number of small glitches, such as Gau being unable to use the Tonberries Rage. Another bug makes it so that "invert damage if undead" attack property only affects healing abilities and so some attacks and statuses don't work correctly. The end result is that the majority of undead absorb Poison-elemental damage, when there were supposed to be a few select spells that hurt the undead, and that Sap hurts both the undead and the living.

While the GBA port fixes most of the bugs, it introduces some of its own to the mix, such as the Level reset glitch.

Patches

Here are some external links to sites of Final Fantasy VI bugfix patches (including patches for countless minor bugs not listed on this wiki, as well as some patches that are more hacks than they are bugfixes):

Final Fantasy VII

Template:Sideicon Final Fantasy VII has various glitches, ranging from harmless graphics glitches to beneficial or even hazardous.

The W-Item duplication bug and its many forms and uses is one of the best known beneficial bugs in the Final Fantasy series. It allows the player to infinitely duplicate virtually any item, apart from key items. Final Fantasy VII also has a notable instance of the overflow glitch, where the characters can overflow damage, killing anything in the game in a single hit. The easier way is with Barret and Vincent with their ultimate weapons. Another beneficial glitch comes with the use of the Gil Plus Materia: the player will always get twice as much gil from battles, even if the Materia only has one star.

The Magic Defense bug renders all Magic Defense values in all armor useless, as the stat is never used when calculating damage on a target. This was fixed for the 2012 PC re-release. Another glitch occurs when a character uses an Elixir in battle, which triggers the Cover ability, where the character with the Cover Materia steps in to receive the Elixir instead of the intended person. The status Darkness halves the physical accuracy of weapon-based attacks, but due to a bug, the status only affects the commands Attack, Morph, Deathblow, Mug, Slash-All, Flash, 2x Cut, and 4x Cut. Because enemies do not use the above commands they are unaffected by it, making inflicting opponents with the status pointless.

A potentially hazardous glitch is the Save Crystal glitch, which may permanently ruin a player's save. Another dangerous glitch lets the player avoid fighting Diamond Weapon, but it will ruin the player's save file. If the player enters the menu and saves their game exactly when the battle against Diamond Weapon is going to start, and then loads their game normally, Diamond Weapon has vanished. This leads the player unable to finish the game as the barrier over North Crater is still intact.

The phenomenon of seeing Aeris's "ghost" in the Sector 5 Church is associated with glitches, although the ghost itself is intended to appear. Some enemies have glitched attack patterns where they are meant to use a certain attack but never do. These bugs go largely unnoticed by players.

If Sneak Attack is used to revive fallen party members their ATB bars will never fill up.

There is a glitch that lets the player skip the entire returning to Midgar scenario all the way up to the boss battle against Helletic Hojo. When the player approaches the North Crater on the Highwind after defeating Diamond Weapon, a scene will trigger where Reeve Tuesti is in the Shinra Headquarters' conference room and will call Professor Hojo on his cellphone and a scene of Hojo operating the Sister Ray's controls is meant to play. The player can trigger the boss battle with Helletic Hojo straight from the scene where Reeve phones Hojo, because during scenes like this the game is meant to cancel character movement, but in this scene if the player holds down, right and run buttons while the scene fades to Hojo's field, the game will consider the player to move towards the location and starts the boss battle.

Another glitch is the Repeating boss glitch that allows one to fight almost any boss on field maps twice (so the Weapons except Diamond fought on the world map are excluded). To do this, one must skip a random battle by opening the menu the instant the game wants to give a random encounter on a field map. This trick can be useful since it allows players to get the battle spoils twice.

All glitches present in the PS version are also in the PC versions. The original PC version has a humorous graphics glitch that occurs if Vincent is in the party at Aeris's death, where his character model is stuck with one leg extended out into the air, although this was fixed in the 2012 re-release. Another glitch exclusive to the PC versions is the "Yuffie warping glitch."

Final Fantasy VIII

Template:Sideicon The original PC-version has many glitches not present in the PS version, ranging from the game crashing easily to minor graphical errors. A patch was released to fix the surfaced issues. Without the patch, when the player would cast Double or Triple, the game would say "Doppel" and "Trippel" during the spell animation, instead of the spells' proper names; also the animations displayed for the Devour command would be in German.

There were also issues of certain cards mysteriously disappearing from the card inventory, and the automatic scenes not starting; for example, when the player approaches Galbadia Garden stationed near Edea's Orphanage, the Battle of the Gardens is supposed to ensue; some players found that the scene triggering the war never begins, thus leaving them stranded.

Ragnarok-stuck-FFVIII

Player's Ragnarok stuck.

The player may run into a game-breaking bug where they lose their Ragnarok airship by landing it too near a structure on the world map, tangling the airship with it making it impossible to board again. Because the player needs the Ragnarok to invade Lunatic Pandora with, they can become stranded if they lose their airship.

Another known oddity is the Dummy enemy, a leftover test enemy in the game's data. Another thing that is rather more of an exploit than a glitch is the chance to duplicate items in Chocobo World. In general, Final Fantasy VIII has fewer glitches than most of its predecessors, and the only big glitch, the Junction glitch, was fixed for the western releases.

Final Fantasy IX

Template:Sideicon The best known glitch is the Thunder Slash glitch, where if Steiner (or Beatrix while under player control) uses the move it has an accuracy of 0%. Another, more uncommon glitch, occurs when the player boards the airship after entering the quicksands. After leaving the ship, the player will be stuck in the middle of the ocean, unable to move. The only way to fix this is to start a new game.

If the eidolon, Fenrir's Terrestrial Rage attack is summoned on Bombs, sometimes when they use Grow, their graphic will disappear and they become invisible. If the player then inflicts them with Poison or Darkness, only the status effect's graphics float in the air.

These glitches have been fixed to the most recent PAL-versions, but the Thunder Slash glitch is still present in the most recent release in North America via the PSN.

A rumor of a glitch is the "Gold Chocobo Bug," supposedly allowing the player obtain a gold chocobo to skip a portion of the storyline. However, this has been determined to be a hoax.

Final Fantasy X

Template:Sideicon Final Fantasy X doesn't have many glitches compared to the previous games. The only big glitch is the Home glitch, or "New Game Plus Glitch" as is sometimes referred to, which lets the player jump back in time and replay portions of the game by returning to Home at a time it shouldn't be possible any more. This glitch was fixed in the PAL (European and Australian) release, and only works in the Japanese International version.

In the International version, during the encounter against Dark Valefor a glitch will occasionally crash the game on either the cutscene before or after the fight. If this glitch happens once, it will always happen in that save file, effectively preventing the player from fighting Penance. The glitch was fixed in the PAL release.

The game also has some minor graphical glitches. For example, if Wakka is petrified by his own attack via the Stonestrike ability, his ball is stuck petrified high above his head, hovering in mid-air. Wakka's ball stays up in the air even after he is healed from petrification, although it doesn't hinder his ability to attack with it.

The Abyss Worm's Regurgitate attack is glitched and may end up making party members invisible until the swallowed characters have left the battleground for a summon or the battle ends, provided a character is under the effect of Guard or Sentinel when Abyss Worm uses this ability. This glitch does not affect gameplay. When fighting a single Grenade, with two Grats, if the player uses any Blizzard spell with Lulu, the game will glitch, and the Grenade will not grow.

If a character with Auto-Potion in their armor is KO'd, they will still lose the item even if it isn't ever actually used. If the player has 8,000 gil or more they can fight Fenrir for free; no matter what the result is, the player won't lose any money.

Kimahri can learn Thrust Kick as an Overdrive, which the game describes as able to Eject enemies; however, due to an oversight by the developers either on the programming side or on the side of the persons who did the game text, Kimahri's Thrust Kick does not inflict Eject, it only does damage. Similarly, the game describes Shiva's Heavenly Strike attack able to inflict delay, but it actually inflicts Threaten status. Likewise, a minor error in the in-game description of Tetra Elemental item erroneously says it works on the party, but it only work on a single party member.

The blitzball minigame has a glitch where the player takes the ball and stays behind the goalkeeper of his team, the opponents will never try to take the ball. If the player's team is leading, the player can wait there until the match end and easily win. Square Enix never fixed the bug even in the later versions, such as the International and the HD Remaster versions.

The Catcher Chocobo minigame has a bug where the player can hang the chocobo at the edge of the Calm Lands until the limited time (2 minutes) is almost up, then continue the race and take a hit from the bird on purpose just right before the time is up. By doing this the player will never get hit by birds in the next race. This bug only happens in the original Japanese version for the PlayStation 2.

The HD Remaster version for PlayStation 4 has the background music not resume where it left off after a battle, but starts the track from the beginning again. Glitches concerning this version's random number generator have also been reported.

Final Fantasy X-2

Template:Sideicon The most notable bug is the Episode Complete bug, that if the player gets Episode Complete in Zanarkand they are not transported back to the Celsius, meaning if Zanarkand is the last location the player goes to get Episode Complete, the scene where the Gullwings are given the Mascot dressphere never triggers, and the player misses out on it even if they fill the requirements.

Due to a bug, the Dark Knight can avoid damage from the Darkness command by equipping the Ragnarok accessory.

Final Fantasy XI

Template:Sideicon Final Fantasy XI has had a number of bugs over the years, most of which are patched when they are found, but some have become important within the history of the game and are worth mentioning here.

The single most infamous bug is probably the infamous Salvage Duplication Bug, which went unnoticed by the dev team for months and was exploited by players to produce billions of gil worth of duplicated items. When the bug was finally discovered by the dev team in November 2008, it was patched later that same month in emergency maintenance, and a special investigation was made that resulted in the permanent bans of approximately 550 players and the temporary suspension of 400 more. The bug, which actually occurred in any event that used the game's "layer" system and not just Salvage, was that when an Alliance dissolved with items in the treasure pool each of the three parties would receive a copy of the items in their own separate treasure pools.

The defective model, with glitched foot circled.

The second most infamous bug is probably the Beetle Foot Glitch, which endured from the introduction of the Beetle family monsters in initial development in 2002 or earlier up until the November 10th, 2015 version update. The glitch was thus at least 13 years old, making it theoretically older than some of the people who play the game. The glitch was a very simple and obvious graphical glitch: the right front foot of beetles was on backwards. The issue was made known by player complaints on the official forums and elsewhere for years before anything was done.

Another long-lasting glitch was the Dance Glitch, which caused the goblins in Dynamis-Jeuno to move in place in unison after all players had been killed. This glitch persisted from the introduction of Dynamis in the February 26th, 2004 version update to the sweeping revamp of Dynamis in the May 10th, 2011 version update.

A bug that was notorious despite its short life was the infamous Frontal Sneak Attack Bug, appearing for a few days in June 2008 after a version update before being patched in emergency maintenance. The problem was simple: Sneak Attack, which normally only worked when behind the monster that was being attacked, now worked only from the front. Sneak Attack was (apparently) not being modified (intentionally) in any way during that version update, causing bafflement at how the dev team could make such a mistake. The phrase "spaghetti code" and references to the bug have ever since been used by players to describe alleged poor programming practices and lax quality control by the dev team.

The 99999 Cure Damage bug was also very short lived, but caused bafflement and derision at the dev team for similar reasons. The bug was simple; casting cure spells on the undead dealt 99999 damage instead of their normal damage.

The Atnm Test bug was a legendary debacle, although as much for the players involved as for the dev team in this case. The first group ever to get the Pandemonium Key needed to challenge the infamous Pandemonium Warden decided to trade it to a mysterious ??? in Wajoam Woodlands instead of the correct ??? located in Aydeewa Subterrane—just to see what would happen. Their trade was accepted, and instead of Pandemonium Warden a single hapless low level goblin called Atnm Test promptly appeared and was killed in a single blow. No loot was dropped. The ??? was swiftly removed from the game, and following an investigation the players' Pandemonium Key was refunded. The bug in this case was twofold: the test ??? should not have been present, and it should not have accepted the Pandemonium Key.

Final Fantasy XII

Template:Sideicon The Immobilize glitch can cause enemies to disappear in the field, and also allow characters to "teleport" within large zones. Another useful glitch is the Zone out glitch, which tricks the game into thinking a dead monster has not been spawned yet, and thus respawns it. The Dead character glitch on the other hand sends a player character into a kind of limbo of having been flagged defeated, but still remaining on the screen, which messes up enemies' attack patterns.

If a player is riding a chocobo and the time is running out, they can get more time in the timer by quickly entering the menu at when the timer has 0.0 seconds left, enter the Equip menu and change equipment (it's easy to just use the remove all equipment command and then immediately choose the optimize option), come back to the field, and the chocobo timer has gained 1.8 more seconds. The player can do the trick again and again to ride a chocobo for as long as they like if they are patient enough.

Another notable thing that may be a glitch is that petrified enemies don't break the battle chain, but their loot drops are still calculated by the current battle chain. This means the player can rake a high battle chain with common enemies, and then go and petrify some rarer enemies to collect their improved loot drops without the chain breaking.

There is a glitch that occurs in the NTSC, but seems to have been fixed by the PAL release, where the player may get stuck behind a standing Garif Herder in the Lull of the Land area of Jahara.

If an Etém is afflicted with both Disable and Confuse, it will continuously teleport without pause. They cannot be killed or dispelled, and the status effects will not wear out, as they are paused while the enemy is teleporting.

An example of a purely cosmetic glitch is the "flapping hair woman" in Rabanastre, close to the bridge near the Sandsea, wherein a NPC, when spoken to, will have wildly flapping hair for no apparent reason. One also exists in the Rabanastre Aerodome, but will only rarely be activated. Something that is more of a mistake than a glitch, is Dyce in the Nam-Yensa Sandsea. Before defeating the Garuda, Dyce looks completely different than how he appears afterward.

Final Fantasy XIII

Template:Sideicon Final Fantasy XIII has some glitches regarding the computer controlled units' AI on the field. The player may find the enemy soldiers continually running around in circles, or party members getting stuck in a jumping motion, endlessly jumping back and forth over a gap. The glitches are merely visual and don't hamper gameplay.

There is a glitch that renders Snow Villiers's weapon outside of battle, letting him have a "different" coat on the field. If the player kills a beast on a mission with the Eidolon of another character, and the summoning is executed while the beast is attacking Snow, Snow's weapon stays on him, even on the field.

There is a glitch where while doing Mission 6 "No Place Like Home" one can kill the Munchkin Maestro without it completing the mission.

In the PC-version, playing at a resolution higher than 1280x720 results in the "Notes"-section of the enemy intel-screen not being displayed properly.

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Template:Sideicon There is a bug regarding the Live Trigger in the Archylte Steppe in the Year Unknown: it doesn't allow the player to collect a missing adornment when the Live Trigger scene occurs after the battle with Faeryl, and if the player does not select the comedic response on the first playthrough of the area, they will not be able to obtain a monster adornment if they replay the area and select the comedic response.

There is a glitch regarding Yaschas Massif where if character will stand on a certain part of stair, the character will shake. This glitch is harmless and can be dispelled by moving the character away.

Some players have reported Mog getting stuck hovering or spinning in place in A Dying World. Since Mog cannot be thrown in the area and the Historia Crux only allows the player to visit Serendipity and the Coliseum at the time, he remains unable to uncover necessary people and elements in the area, and the player cannot move forward in the story.

In battle, performing the Friendly Fire Feral Link with monsters such as the Circuitron will sometimes render the Auto Battle option unusable in the turn afterward. If the player attempts to select the Auto Battle option, the sound effect that plays when Auto Battle actions are queued will play, but no actions will be queued and the player will not be taken to the target selection screen. Players can still manually input abilities and use items, and after the turn has passed, the Auto Battle option will work as normal.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Template:Sideicon There can be multiple NPCs standing on where the Clock Tower pedestal is, clipping through it and each other. This can also happen in the Warrens, in the wall next to the Oracle Drive, and in several other locations in Luxerion, particularly in doorways.

The PC port has glitches that either do not exist or are not prominent on console versions. In the Highlands areas, the chocobo green planting spots can become glitched in various ways, erasing the planted greens and sometimes leading to the player not being able to use the spots.

Some "soft-cutscene" dialog sequences (wherein Lightning speaks to other characters with generic animations and camera pans, as opposed to more fully-choreographed cutscenes) can rarely glitch, getting stuck in loops or repeating, and such cutscenes that are involved with quests, specifically those that are tied to quest flag, can even bug those quests to make them incompletable.

In Yusnaan and Luxerion, the loudspeaker announcer can have multiple speech lines playing over one another.

In addition, the PC port introduces some graphical glitches that do not exist in the console versions, such as skybox and transparency flickering.

There is a trick using Steam's Dynamic Frame Rate and the Decoy EP ability on Bhunivelze, such that casting the ability on this frame rate could cause the Moogle to clip through the floor, making it invulnerable to most of the Bhunivelze's attacks, yet still drawing his attacks.

Final Fantasy XV

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Angelgard explored via a glitch

There is glitch to get Aranea as a party member after her appearance as a guest for Chapter 7.

It is possible to visit Angelgard via an "out of bounds" glitch if the player swims there on a chocobo. The imperial lands seen from the train can also be visited this way, but there is nothing to interact with in these areas.

Final Fantasy XV Episode Duscae

In the original version of the demo it was possible to leave the intended demo bounds to venture outside the map and approach the large crystal in the area. If the player ventured too far off the map they got an error message and a Game Over. One way to leave the map was to use the cars driving around by running in front of them at the boundaries to push Noctis out. The demo was later patched.

Final Fantasy Tactics

Template:Sideicon The original PS version had some glitches that were later fixed to the War of the Lions remake. The Quickening glitch is more of an exploit of game mechanics than a glitch, and can still be performed in the War of the Lions remake.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

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Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift

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Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

Template:Sideicon The most famous glitch is Benjamin's Cure when cast on the final boss, causing the Dark King to take over ten thousand damage due to the Overflow glitch. The player can also gain a free level up from Battlefields that reward EXP, by leveling up during the final fight of the Battlefield. The EXP prize will cause the player to level a second time, even though it is not high enough to raise the player an entire level.

Final Fantasy Adventure

Template:Sideicon There is one known glitch:

The Final Fantasy Legend

Template:Sideicon The most famous and peculiar bug is the Saw bug.

Final Fantasy Legend II

Template:Sideicon There are two known glitches, both of which can harm the player's game and render it unplayable if the player exploits them. There is also a glitch related to the Sound Test. A bug occurs where the save-counter value from the loading screen is carried over if the player happens to go there first, leading to overflow and illegal values for the Sound Effect option.

Final Fantasy Legend III

Template:Sideicon There are two known glitches:

Dissidia Final Fantasy & Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

Template:Sideicon Template:Sideicon Dissidia Final Fantasy had a number of harmless graphics glitches, which were fixed in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. The biggest glitches, however, the Double KO glitch and the Holy glitch, exist in both games.

The Mirage Sandsea contains some errors in its terrain, the most notable being in the forest northeast to the Gateway Forgotten Trail, which will leave the player stuck, the only way out being resetting the game.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

Template:Sideicon There is one known glitch:

Template:Bugs and Glitches Template:Recurring elements

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