# Plug-in error from deblur: Duplicate sample IDs

**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/plug-in-error-from-deblur-duplicate-sample-ids/9570
**Category:** Technical Support
**Tags:** import, deblur
**Created:** [May 7, 2019, 8:10am UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/plug-in-error-from-deblur-duplicate-sample-ids/9570 "2019-05-07T08:10:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![Nicholas\_Bokulich](https://forum.qiime2.org/user_avatar/forum.qiime2.org/nicholas_bokulich/32/19937_2.png) [@Nicholas\_Bokulich](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/Nicholas_Bokulich)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2019, 12:30pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/plug-in-error-from-deblur-duplicate-sample-ids/9570/2 "2019-05-07T12:30:35Z")

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Hi @sarah_i,  
Two questions:

1. what version of QIIME 2 are you using?
2. could you please post the full error message? (re-run with the `--verbose` flag, or open the log file where debug info has been saved)

It sounds like you are possibly running an outdated version of deblur that could not handle sample IDs with underscores in the names, as described here:

> [@Deblur problem - Duplicate Sample IDs error](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/deblur-problem-duplicate-sample-ids-error/1213/3):
>
> Hi @fstudart, Thank you for report. What I believe is going on is that Deblur is treating \_ as a special denotation character, as was done in QIIME1 for demultiplexed output, which Deblur was originally designed to process. In brief, the demultiplexed output in QIIME1 required that sequence identifiers conform to \<SAMPLEID\>\_\<INTEGER\>, and the sample ID associated with the sequence was determined by splitting the sequence identifier into its sample ID and a unique integer components. My guess ri…

If that is the case, just install the latest version of QIIME 2 and your problems should dissolve away!

I hope that helps.

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