iTunes won't play mp3s that QuickTime plays fine

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iTunes won't play mp3s that QuickTime plays fine

iTunes won't play about 10-20% of my mp3s. iTunes doesn't give an error, it just doesn't play the songs. QuickTime will play them fine.

Unfortunately just removing the songs from my library and re-adding them doesn't solve the problem. Once removed from the library, these mp3s can't be re-added. Again, no error.

I repeat, Quicktime plays these mp3s fine.

Possible patterns: The only pattern I've been able to figure out about which songs won't play is that they tend to be older and normally if one song in an album won't play the rest of the songs in the album won't play either, but I'm not certain either of these patterns is real.

What happens when I try to play a song: When I double click on a song 1) no speaker icon is displayed next to the song 2) no title, author, or progress bar is displayed in the beige apple display area near the top middle of the iTunes window and 3) no exclamation point is displayed next to the song warning me there's a problem.

Possible clue: On songs that work if I right click and choose Get Info then the Summary tab has three sections, with the second section including two columns of information about the song (Kind, Size...Format, Channels...). On the songs that don't play only the first column of information is displayed.

Vista SP1
iTunes 7.7.0.43
QuickTime 7.5

Posted on Jul 22, 2008 5:14 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

gigityadam31

Level 1

4 points

Sep 14, 2008 8:10 AM in response to scott242

I've had the same problem for a while now and i have figured out a way to fix it. This may take a while if you have a lot of songs that weren't working, but its worth it. If the song plays in quicktime but not in itunes, just use quicktime to convert it to a .wav file (File>Export>Sound to Wav). When it's done converting to whatever folder open it in itunes and it should work. If you don't want the huge wav files, use itunes to convert it to acc or mp3 (right click song>Create acc version <-- depending on your import settings, mp3 or acc would be created). If anyones found an easier way message me.

Mac OS X 10.5.x
Vista SP1
iTunes 7 and 8
QuickTime 7.5.x

Message was edited by: gigityadam31

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Answer 2

Aug 3, 2008 7:21 AM in response to scott242

I have a similar problem except Quicktime and Winamp can't play the files too while Windows Media Player can.

Can WMP play these files for you?

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Answer 3

SethDH

Level 1

0 points

Aug 14, 2008 4:36 PM in response to jookieapc

I've got this same problem, only affects certain songs but seems to be tied to an entire album at a time, ie. if one song from an album won't play chances are the rest don't either. Files play fine in WMP. I would love it if anyone knew how to fix this!

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Answer 4

Aug 15, 2008 1:01 AM in response to SethDH

I tried an ID3 tag correction utility which I read worked for another iTunes user but it didn't for me.

My mp3s which won't play are 44 kHz, 259 kb/s (average). I'd say the mp3 format is common cause for the glitch not the album name. I'm going to try the same mp3s on another PC to see if iTunes 7.4 is the problem.

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Answer 5

Bohn101

Level 1

0 points

Aug 22, 2008 12:09 PM in response to jookieapc

I have similar problems. Except the songs use to play in iTunes, I know this cause its sitting there with a 15 on the Play Count. The affected songs play fine in other players like WMP 11 and it DOES NOT affect other tracks on the album. It appears to be 189 VBR mp3.
I tried reloading it and that doesn't help.. Probably has something to do with a newer version of iTunes, if someone figures this out, let us know. 🙂

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Answer 6

Aug 22, 2008 8:11 PM in response to Bohn101

Mine used to play in iTunes too.

There are quite a few solutions related to corrupted mp3 headers and the following program corrects corrupted headers in VBR mp3 files.

http://marv.kordix.com/archives/000279.html

The program, foobar2000 plays the questionable mp3s however the sound clicks, plays too fast and is it out of sync. I suspect VBR mp3 files have a table telling the mp3 player what bit rate to change to at particular points in the song.

Try the program above and if that doesn't correct your problem one work around is reconverting the mp3s. It might work in iTunes.

Foobar2000 says my mp3 file is "MP3 CBR" i.e. constant bit rate but it's definitely VBR. This seems to be the main issue. WMP knows it's a VBR mp3.

Message was edited by: jookieapc

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Answer 7

Aug 26, 2008 8:09 PM in response to scott242

I am having problems with itunes. the songs seem to be playing too fast making it really chopy and sound weird. i am having the same problem as scott242 10-20% wont play quicktime will play the songs but they are still chopy and sound good if i play them in windows media player 11 or media player classic. i have tried uninstalling and then do a registry clean with reg mech, then reinstall itunes 7.7.1 and quicktime and the problem is still there. If you want to hear a sample of what it sounds like go to my hompage it is http://emerysteele.myvnc.com if that wont work type in my ip address 72.45.86.164
PS videos will play good in itunes and quicktime its just mp3 i am having trouble with.

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Answer 8

Aug 27, 2008 12:31 AM in response to emerysteele

I'm almost certain the cause of the problem is simply this - our mp3s are encoded at a variable bit rate iTunes 7 doesn't know how to play. Earlier versions could play these files.

All we can do is wait for this to be fixed in a future release of iTunes.

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Answer 9

Aug 28, 2008 9:53 AM in response to scott242

I have iTunes version 7.7.1 and it plays VBR mp3's fine. I recently got a computer virus and my mp3 collection got messed up around the same time as the virus infected my computer. The problem got solved by doing a batch convert of my mp3 collection with sound forge. Just try one file then load it into your iTunes. if that doesn't work then you gots other problems. Hopefully this helps.

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Answer 10

Aug 29, 2008 1:24 AM in response to emerysteele

My iTunes plays some VBRs but not all. Maybe some virus causes this problem but I think the more likely cause is iTunes not supporting some formats of VBR.

Re-encoding has already been suggested here but re-encoding a lossy format isn't a smart move and it's iTunes that has the problem.

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Answer 11

tmchow

Level 1

0 points

Sep 12, 2008 3:21 PM in response to scott242

Same issue that everyone mentions in this thread, namely, iTunes will not play a certain perctange of my songs. These same songs that won't play in iTunes, don't seem to play on my iPhone either but other media players like Windows Media Player (WMP) and Media Monkey will play them just fine.

This affects both iTunes 7.7 and well as the newest iTunes 8. My PC is runnign windows Vista Ultimate.

For me, it's affecting both VBR and CBR files, so it's definitely not something specific to VBR. The specific CBR songs are encoded at 320kbps, 44.1khz, ID3 tag v2.3, and Joint stereo.

I've tried ID3 tag cleanup, removing the song from iTunes and re-importing but still no luck.

Anyone have a solution yet?

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Answer 12

Sep 14, 2008 12:19 PM in response to scott242

i have the same problem & had tried restoring from a backup thinking that might fix it. my songs show the way another poster mentioned without the 2nd column of info in the info tab. these were all songs that played in itunes previously. before i go thru the hassle of fixing them has anyone heard whether or not apple is aware & planning a fix? i haven't even identified all the songs that have the problem.

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Answer 13

Sep 17, 2008 8:48 AM in response to evil66gurl

It might be a virus or a corruption causing this.

I formatted and reinstalled Windows XP and although I haven't tested my songs yet I'm confident they'll work again.

Anyone still with this problem: try putting your iPod into Manual Sync Mode and see if songs will play in iTunes when selecting the mp3 directly on your iPod.

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Answer 14

Sep 17, 2008 4:01 PM in response to scott242

I am having this exact same problem. I recently upgraded to the new iTunes 8 and now a ton of my music will not play or sounds distorted/too fast/garbled in iTunes and on my iPhone, or it just flat skips the song. I have 4,625 songs taking up 21.91 GB of space and approximately 6 GB of it will no longer play. Obviously this is not good and some Apple support would be appreciated, at the very least if anyone else is experiencing this and has found a solution please help. Also, I have played selected files in WMP and they play perfectly fine. Lastly, I have noticed that on the affected files in iTunes when viewing the file summary (right click, summary tab) a column is missing on the right side that contains the information "Format", "Channels", "ID3 Tag", and "Encoded with". This applies to all affected files. (So perhaps the issue has to do with the way the tags are stored on these files?). PLEASE HELP! I find it hard to live without my music!

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Answer 15

Katrina S.

Level 7

24,131 points

Sep 17, 2008 5:20 PM in response to Haitch De

*a column is missing on the right side that contains the information "Format", "Channels", "ID3 Tag", and "Encoded with".*

This is great info! Can you get a tag reader such as mp3tag and tell us what they were encoded with?

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