songs not playing to completion / finishing early

[bobdigi]

id be interested if this is happening to anyone else and moreso if anyone can help!

many songs in itunes are suddently not playing to completion (ie a song of 7 minutes long will stop and skip to the next songs after 3 minutes!!)
It may be a coincidence, but this has only started since upgrading to itunes 7
Its not like the info or tags are wrong, the songs really are longer than they are playing for (for example, if I drag the time diamond to a time later in the song (ie later than 3 minutes) it will play for a few seconds and then skip)
This is happening on my ipod aswell
Some songs are so badly affected that they skip after 1 second! (Their playcount is very high for songs I havnt heard in months!!)
Another interesting one, is that whole artists are significantly affected, for example, most my bowie mp3s are messed up
Furthermore, songs Ive recently added (by download) are affected

Any help very welcome

itunes : 7.0.2(15)
ipod: 20Gig (4G Model)
Working off powerbook g4 osx 10.4.8

[bwh79]

Not sure if this is related to your problem or not, but iTunes keeps a "Start time" and a "Stop time" for each song. I don't believe you can mass-edit this value, so you'd have to do it one song at a time, but if you right-click a track and select "Get Info", then click the "Options" tab, you will see a start time and a stop time. If either of these boxes are checked, it will use that value as the start or end of the song when it gets played. Otherwise, it should start at the very beginning and play to the very end.

[Essin]

So you're saying Play Count gets incremented? That only happens when a song is played to completion (the last few seconds), not when it's skipped or another song is started.
Interesting...

[bobdigi]

thanks bwh79, but when i ticked and set the 'stop time' to 2 secs before the end of the song for example the 7min song above (1 set finish to 6.58) but it still finished playing after 3 minutes !! Its crazy stuff!
If I drag the diamond thing to anyhere beyond 3 minutes itll play for a few seconds then skip
Thanks Essin, but the play count is still going up! Mental!
Its as if the information after the 3 minutes is corrupt, its obviously there (as in when i drag the diamond to later in the song) But if I look at the waveform in audacity software it only displays the first half of the song
This is affecting more and more of my music - music that never was problematic before - its happening to songs ive downloaded (from blogs) and from songs ive imported with itunes

[vs271]

I have this problem too with a couple songs. The song just stops in the same place in particular songs. After about 10 seconds it will skip to the next track and all is fine. The songs play fine in iTUNEs but the iPOD has a problem with them. I have tried unchecking them synching, checking and resynching but that didn't help. Next I am gonna try to move the location so ITUNES alerts me to correct that and mabybe it will resynch the song. There is the option to convert the mp3....but then if i do that i would lose the playcount on the original song and that would suck and I am not sure if the itunes converted song would play through either.

[Essin]

Publish an example song or two.
Are these VBR maybe?

[RatherPlayHalo]

This happened to me with an AFI album. Works flawlessly in iTunes, no specific stop time specified, but my iPod will only play the first 8 or 10 seconds of each track.

[crmg]

Hello,
I just registered myself in this forum due to a similar problem with my ipod- Could you please, tell to me how did you solved the problem of no more than 10 seconds playings of songs recorded in your iPod? I don't lay you if say that it will make me mad! Help meeeeeeee....
regards
crmg
(don't worry. I am not crazy yet!)

[gaz36]

Hi all,
Just joined here, I have got the old video 60gb ipod & had it for the 3 years & not one issue with till now. I have the same issue as everyone else here. This has only happended since the last 1.3 OS update for the ipod.

How frustrating....6000 plus tracks all playing 10 seconds only!! However I found that new stuff I have added since plays fine. So I suspect it something to do the the new "bug free" 1.3 update!!

I haven't fiddled around with it yet but I will over this weekend. I'll post what ever outcome I get Monday.

[beatlebob63]

I know why, you may have your internet virus scan and internet security on when you're downloading to your library, no can do, it messes with the kps, and the matting of the song scripts, and sometimes it'll make the song skip and jump and stutter, turn them off or disable them when working with itunes, does not effect syncing function though.

[Rabbit's Ears]

I had a similar problem with an iPod “5th generation with video” and have stumbled upon something that seems to work.

The problem was that some songs were finishing early by about 15 to 20 seconds. The trouble appeared to be limited to unprotected MP3 files imported into the iTunes library (as apart from being format converted or ripped with iTunes)

As bwh79 says there is an attribute for Start and Finish time values for each song. As stated it doesn’t appear to be possible to change this for multiple items. However, if you choose to edit multiple items (Select more than one record, right click and choose “Get Info”), the form that appears has a series of drop down options on the last row. Each has a check box associated with it. I found that setting the check box beside the “Gapless Album” dropdown box and clicking OK, it cures the playback problem. Don’t change the “Gapless Album” value. It defaults to NO. All that was needed was to set the checkbox.

This has worked for the contents of the existing iPod library or the iTunes library before exporting songs to the iPod.

The PC concerned is using Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and iTunes version 7.7.1.11.

I have no idea why this works but thanks to bwh79 for sending me on the right track!

[as good as dave]

hey people.... i d appriciate it if you could help me out a little with a problem with itunes simmerlar to the other posted earlier....

itunes will not play any of the songs past a maximum adverage time of 25 seconds... and my ipod is doing the same sort of thing..

ive read all the way down the page trying to find a way to fix the problem, but with out any succes, none of the stated methods would work....

i do not have a mac, so that isn't part of the equasion... im using a acer... and i also am currently using the lates version of itunes....


i do not know what to do, would anybody be ably to help.??

[as good as dave]

i have trye more ways to fix it...

but still, no success...

could anybody help me out?

[wankhairil]

I think I've found a solution. This worked for me.

1. Locate the actual song file. You can check this in iTunes, use the 'Get info' command, in the summary tab, there's a 'where' item at the bottom. Mentally note that this is 'file#1'.

2. Once you've find the file, make a copy of this file in some other folder. Or maybe even on the desktop. Mentally note that this is 'file#2', which is a copy of 'file#1'. Do not rename.

3. Go to iTunes, and delete the problematic song. If iTunes ask to remove the file, click 'yes'. If iTunes doesn't ask, manually remove the file from the original folder. You are removing 'file#1'.

4. Once this is done, move back the copied file, ie 'file#2', to location where 'file#1' was.

5. Add the song back into iTunes. iTunes will treat it as a new song. You will lose some data like Rating or Play Count. You might need to add some details like track number and so on.

6. Sync your iPod. Done.

You have to do this steps to every problematic song. Tedious, yes. But it's better than the need to re-encode the files.

[tomas58]

I've tried three computers and 2 Ipods - both brand new - a Nano and a Shuffle. Hours and hours spent reloading, reinstalling, etc etc etc. Problems still exist and I am convinced it's Apple wanting people to use (purchase Macs). They pretty much told me that in two different Apple stores - yes many many hours trying to get Ipods to synch properly. I'll return this Ipod Nano and look for an MP3 player this weekend to use with my PC. Yes, Ipods are cool and ITunes is cool but I can't give anymore of my life in trying to fix what can't be fixed. BTW, I'm a computer science and IT professional - sure I make mistakes but this time it isn't one of them.