I hate, hate, hate dealing with Christmas lights, but my life would be miserable if I don't. I really thought the switch from incandescent to LED would make them more reliable, but no. Strings that were working when put away are 1/3 dead ten months later. And yeah, for the price they're not worth trying to puzzle out which bulb to replace. I suppose I could get commercial-quality sets at $5-10x, but that's not happening. Bah, humbug.