Snap Crackle Strings (D'Addario?! WTF?)

I just put D'Addario J71's on my tenor Mainland about 3 weeks ago and they were settling in nicely. Then yesterday or the day before, I noticed the uke sounded muffled. Then today, it was absolute out of tune, sitting in the case. Now, it is warmer, but still....

As I tried to tune the A string, it refused to cooperate and got lower lower. Then snappo!

Defective strings? Defective me?

It was rather fortuitous because I have some sets of South Coast strings to go try out and had to take off the newly installed D'Addarios anyway (did Dirk put a whammy spell on my old strings to speed up my new install? Hmmmmmm.) Nah...

But really, what gives?

Sounds like defective strings.

What kind of SouthCoasts did you get?

I have a selection--I'm supposed to give an analysis on 2 tenors (eleuke and the Mainland.) I'm so rushed at work, can't even restring the Mainland yet (tax season ..I'm not a CPA but in a related field so we all work long hours till end of April.)

Must be a bad packet. Thos D'Addarios are tough old strings normally. Jakes choice I believe.

I had 2 wound strings break on 2 separate ukes. I was baffled.

Do strings have a used by date?

Are there special storage instructions?

Detune when not in use?

I have been using D'Addario J71s for a couple of years and never had a problem. Maybe you had a bad string. Did you string it correctly? The packaging and numbering can be confusing if you are not familiar with them.... J4401 (.029) extra-hard tension is used for the G, J4601 (.029) hard tension is used for the A.

Gwynedd said:

It was rather fortuitous because I have some sets of Southcoast strings to go try out and had to take off the newly installed D'Addarios anyway (did Dirk put a whammy spell on my old strings to speed up my new install? Hmmmmmm.) Nah...

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Gwynedd said:

I have a selection--I'm supposed to give an analysis on 2 tenors (eleuke and the Mainland.) I'm so rushed at work, can't even restring the Mainland yet (tax season ..I'm not a CPA but in a related field so we all work long hours till end of April.)

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Ah, I understand. My father is a CA (the Canadian version of the American CPA, I believe), and tax season was always a 'special' time at home when I was growing up!
Good luck with the returns....but you'll thank yourself if you lose 15 minutes of sleep (or work time) to string up those SouthCoasts.

The reason I asked about which ones (Light, Medium, Heavy) is that i've found it really important to follow Dirk's suggestions on what key to tune them to. I just love my BlueGrassUke tuned in A.