Looooong bleaching times with Fuji Hunt E-6 kit

[avortex]

I'm having some trouble lately processing E-6 slides with the Fuji 6-bath kit.
With the usual 8 minutes bleaching, the base has a brownish tint and is a bit darker than usual after drying.
I have to re-start the process from the ple-bleach and give more than 20 minutes to the bleach to get a full clear base.

I didn't remember to have this problem in the past, and I keep all my solutions at 38ºC.
Anybody knows where the problem is?

 

[Rudeofus]

I assume that your bleach looks normal, i.e. there is no white or brown precipitate, it has the typical deep purple color and does not look unusually dilute. I also assume that your kit is used but not overused, and that no excess of prebleach got into bleach. You also didn't wash between prebleach and bleach.

If you can say 'yes' to all my above assumptions, then you could look at pH of your bleach: does it smell a bit like Ammonia? If you take 10-20 ml of that bleach and drip some Sodium Bicarbonate into it, does it fizzle?

 

[avortex]

Yes to all. In fact, they were mixed fresh from a new kit. It also happened to me at the end of the previous kit, and I thought that was the cause. Now I don't understand anything...
It didn't smell like ammonia, and I can't make the test with carbonate because I got rid of that mix after all the processed rolls...

 

[avortex]

I remember now... The only thing I do different from the instructions is a wash between bleach and fixer. Could that be the cause? It shouldn't be...