MP3 song cuts off while playing

[Steve Greenberg]

I just bought a 30 gig ipod and am using OS X on a PB G4 with itunes 3. Mostly, transferring songs from the PB to the ipod works fine. However, some songs play well on the computer and seem to download to the ipod, but when I try to play one of the "problem" songs, it only will play to a set point and then move to another song. If I manually fast foward past the offending point, it plays the whole way through. Does anyone know why this happens and how to fix it? Thanks. - Steve G

[eustacescrubb]

Sounds like the track's stop time has been set to something other than the track's end. To check this, plug in your iPod, and click on the affected track in iTunes's display of your iPod's contents. Type command-i. Click on the rightmost tab (I don't remember its name and I'm away from my Mac) and you'll see feilds where you can set the start and stop times. If the track's stop time is something less than the track's total time, change it.

[troyb]

Thank goodness I've found someone with the same issue I have. Below is my query posted to Macintouch.

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Subject: iPod Quitting Songs Randomly


I purchased a 30GB iPod from the Atlanta Apple store and have been loving it. I too have noticed the "pop" sound between tracks. However, an even more troubling problem that I am finding is that certain songs would suddenly end and the Pod would go on to the next song. I tested the song in iTunes and the songs do not suddenly quit. But, at the precise point where the song ends on the iPod, there is a "pop" or dropout in the recording. This is probably a problem with the initial recording or the ripping process, rather than iTunes or the iPod.

What gets me is that iTunes doesn't freak out, and continues playing the song, where the iPod ends the tune at the dropout and goes to the next song. Needless to say, this really peeves me! Nothing worse than humming along to a song and have it suddenly end. At first I thought that I was inadvertently activating the "super-sensitive" buttons, but after much testing, it is definitley the iPod "hearing" the pop and considering it the end of the song. Somehow I think that this might be related to the popping at the beginning of tracks. Perhaps the "pop" is actually being used by the iPod to signal track beginnings? At any rate, I wonder if any one else has experienced this?

(PB 800 DVI - iTunes 4 - iPod 30GB)

[troyb]

In response to the suggestion that the song's ending time has been incorrectly set:

This does not seem to be the case. In both versions of the song in iTunes and on the iPod, you can fast forward to the second after the point where the iPod quits the song, and it will continue playing just fine. If I listen or scrub the song in either iTunes or in Quicktime player, there is a "blip" at the precise point of quitting. My guess is that, the "timecode" of the song gets messed up at the point and the iPod sees this as a track ending. iTunes apparently is far less picky about this. I've also, noticed that the "pop" is much less pronounced in iTunes than it is in Quicktime player. I would think that this could be fixed with a firmware update?

[Steve Greenberg]

Toby, at least I'm not alone in this. It will be interesting to see how many others have this problem. Hopefully, it will prove to be prevelant enough to demand a quick fix. I have another five days to return the beast to my Apple store.

Since my last post, I deleted one of the "problem" songs from my ipod, downloaded a different copy of it to my PB and transferred it to my ipod. The new copy plays the whole way through.

Another song just cut out as I'm writing this. The cut out point for this song is further along than the first one.

John, thanks for your advice. I did what you suggested, but the end time is as it should be and the song still cuts out prematurely.

I've taken the liberty of calling this problem, "MP3 premature ejection." Maybe it's a male vs female ipod thing. ;-)

Any additional suggestions or advice will be appreciated.

- Steve G

[dymod]

You're probably playing a song that wasn't ripped using iTunes, and it contains out of sequence frames.

The quick solution to your problem is to remove the song from iTunes and re-rip from the original CD. If that's not an option, use a program such as MPegger DropDecoder to decompress the MP3 file into its larger AIFF counterpart. Then re-compress it with MPegger Encoder or a similar MP3 creator. This should remove the bad frames and allow the song to play correctly.

dymod

[Steve Greenberg]

Thanks for the feedback. I believe you're right. That is, I had downloaded the offending files from Limewire and when I play the song on itunes, it doesn't cut out but at the time that it cuts out on the ipod, it seems to "skip a frame." Funny that itunes will play it while the ipod won't. As troyb noted, itunes seems much less "picky" about this flaw in the file. I wonder why that is. - Steve G

[eustacescrubb]

iTunes has more RAM and procesing power available to it. Your iPod has only its buffer (32 MB) and a much smaller/less powerful processor than a G3/G4. Thus, when it has a problematic file, it has more computing power "reserves" upon which to call.

[Steve Greenberg]

Thanks, John. That makes sense. I was prepared to return my newly bought ipod to the Apple Store, as there is a 10 day period after purchase in which it can be returned/exchanged directly to the store. However, it seems that the problem is not with the unit itself - or do you think that there may be variability in a unit's ability to handle these type flaws, with some units being "defective" because they have less of this ability, due to some manufacturing problem? I asssume a # of people obtain their songs via limewire, yet there does not seem to be many posts (just one other) complaining of this problem. - Steve G

[dymod]

I'll bet that you, just like the rest of us, removed the "Don't steal music." sticker when you opened the box. :)

Suffice to say, most people have songs that were ripped using Windows, Linux, what have you and there are a LOT of corrupted files out there. iTunes takes it like a champ and plays them anyway, blips and bleeps included, but these bad frames are choking your poor iPod.

In any case, your best bet is to obtain a new copy of the song or to decompress and recompress the offending mp3 again.

dymod

[Steve Greenberg]

Thanks for the reply. I will take this to mean that my iPod is not defective. Rather than trying to choke it myself when a song quits in the middle, I will attempt to feed it a healthier diet. ;-)

[Moldy]

Hey, it's done the same thing to me with actual CD-ripped files. My new iPod has this problem too, unfortunately. There were only three or four songs out of thirty or so I listened to that didn't do this.

[sawxray]

I just bought my 30 Gb iPod (my first computer was a Mac and I still love their style!), and I can download the music just fine.

The songs run just fine on the iPod. BUT-when I scroll or scrub, backwards or forwards, or use FF or Rewind, the song ends prematurely.

When I listen to a specific point in the song and check the time, as soon as I rewind of FF, that point in the song now has a later time index than it just had. In other words, the time scale has advanced relative to the music, so it reaches the predetermined end before the music does.

Hope this helps define the problem. Glad to see I'm not going crazy!

[sawxray]

Just figured out that the problem happens with VBR, but not CBR mp3's.

I believe the timing on VBR files is more difficult to track...