songs not playing to completion / finishing early

[wyneken]

I don't think this is a fiendish Apple plot, since this kind of odd behavior occurs sometimes on Macs, too.

A foolproof solution, in my experience: Select the song and then, from the main menu, "Advanced > Create AAC version." (You can also set the format to MP3, but the AAC encoder will have better results in terms of music quality.) I'd suggest checking your import settings to make sure iTunes Plus is selected.

This will create a fresh copy of the song with new tags, start/stop times, et cetera, in a version that iTunes is sure to recognize. You can then delete (if you like) the original version of the song.

[bobzed57]

I have the problem as well on my 6-month old 120GB Classic. It seems to occur to songs randomly, and at different lengths of playback. Interestingly, on a couple of songs when it's happened I'veI skipped back to the beginning of the song and it played all the way through. Beats me.

I did try the gap-less fix without success. The songs play OK in iTunes and other media players. The songs also play in other mp3 devices. Noting the last post, has anybody had the problem with AAC or AIFF formats?

Disappointingly, this is my first Apple product and I'm now struggling to see the hype.

Cheers and any advice welcome.

Bob

[asnyder69]

I think I am having a similar problem only I realized it happens when I try to run while listening to my ipod on my iphone. This also happens if I try to dance with it- this is so frustrating! Has anyone realized they are having a similar issue while the device is being moved around? If I sit still the songs are fine and play all the way through.

[NancyTurner]

We seem to be talking about at least two different problems ... (1) iTunes not completing tracks and/or (2) iPod not completing tracks. I had the latter problem. I contacted Apple Support. Here's what fixed the problem:

- 'Unsynch' the iPOD.
-- Connect and select the device
-- Go to the Music tab
-- Uncheck 'Sync Music'. This starts an 'empty' synch that clears the device completely.
- Re-check 'Sync Music', which re-synchs the iPod entirely.

After these steps, my problem tracks played to completion. In my case the problem seemed to be due to corruption that happened many syncs ago.

Hope this helps someone ...

[badapple]

I have the same problem, all tunes play ok on itunes (windows 7) but about 50% of tracks stop at exactly the same play time on my ipod classic 80gb.
I have converted the tracks from MP3 to AAC, no difference. Done all the hard resets, no difference. Also tried defragging, no difference. Synced to a different IPOD, same effect. Tried MP3 VAl but that said the tracks were OK. I'm now trying the clean and re-sync as recommended above.
Does anybody know enough about MP3 structure to identify a tag which would cause the player to mute at the same point on every tracK? I assume it has muted, as it continues in mute mode until the track playtime has expired, then starts playing the next track normally, unless the next rack is also similarly affected. There is no variability, a bad track is always bad and vice versa.

[ExTexan]

@bwh79 and @Rabbit's Ears and @wankhairil...

I tried all these suggestions...

1) The stop time was filled in with the total duration of the song (7:09), but the box wasn't checked. The song plays to 6:48 and stops.

2) There is no "Gapless Album" option in my version of iTunes when editing multiple songs.

3) I deleted and re-imported the songs (4 songs in this case). It did not fix the problem.

Any other suggestions?

[ExTexan]

Just to follow-up... in another thread, someone asked if the files play fine using something other than iTunes. I don't know why I didn't try that before, but, in my case, the files in question were corrupted. I used an audio editor to chop the MP3 files down to the "good" part and all is fine now.

[77scooter]

Just started having this problem today. Imported 12 songs into iTunes and it will only play the first 10 seconds or so then skip to the next song... Never had this happen before. The weird thing is when i sync the new songs to my iphone5 they play just fine !!! but wont play right in iTunes. Ive tried fecking everything i can think of and no luck... Any ideas anyone ???

[77scooter]

Just tried playing some songs Ive had on iTunes for ages and its doing the same bloody thing with some of them... Only difference being it also crashes when playing some if i try to drag the diamond so far along... and some it'll only play after a certain time point...

[ExTexan]

Here's another clue as to what was causing the problem in my case... ALL of the songs I had problems with were from albums where they overlapped one song to another. I think there is some sort of coding in each song that tells where the next song begins (a few seconds from the end of the current song), and iTunes is interpreting that as the actual end of the current song.

Maybe the problem 77scooter is having is the same, but caused by the overlap at the beginning of a song, instead of the end as it was for me.

[cjmnews]

You should make sure that cross fade is turned off.

[ExTexan]

@cjmnews, thanks for the tip, but I'm not using crossfade (I just checked to make sure it hadn't gotten turned on by one of the upgrades). As I said, this "stopping before the end of the song" problem (in my case) was definitely related to ALL songs on 5 separate albums... all from the same "artist". It's not really an artist so much as a DJ (I think) that makes compilations of various artists, and takes great pains to match beginnings/endings of songs so that the crossfade s/he does sounds nice, though I don't usually like songs to overlap in that way. Every song on those five albums, or at least all the ones that I liked enough to add to my "faves" playlist, had the same problem, and the place where they all stopped playing was at the point where the overlap began (near the end).

So I can't help but think that there must be something coded into those songs that maybe some players (other than iTunes, obviously) can recognize as the actual start/end of each song, even though the start of one song is actually a few seconds before the end of the previous song (because of the overlap).