iTunes not playing uploaded AAC files, changes time to 789:57:13

I use a mac and am having the same problem. There are examples of this problem going back to 2006, but I never experienced it until a recent update.

All of my affected files were converted with FFmpeg. Most with Audacity. Some with another app, most likely using the same library. Libavcodec Checking the songs with COMMAND I to get information and going to the options tab revealed that they were encoded with Lavf55.33.100bbe

Audacity does not do batch conversions to AAC. Only one at a time. It does do batch conversions to mp3, wav and a couple of others. So you might try that.

I used FISSION by Rogue Amoeba software. $29. I am not affiliated with Rogue Amoeba. Just a user. It does have batch conversion available to AAC.

To do this:

1. In iTunes Set View Options to display time and make sure to view as songs so you can see a column view.
2. click the header column for time to sort by time.
3. Select all the 789:57:13 and drag to a folder in the finder, then delete from iTunes and move to Trash, not just delete from library.
4. perform your batch conversion to another folder and drag the converted songs back into iTunes.
5. Delete both folders you just created from your mac to save space. I have never used Windows, but I assume the process can't be all that different. But Fission is Mac only software. As a windows user, I suppose using an Audacity macro to convert to wav or something might be your best choice. You can always convert back to AAC in iTunes if you want.

Yes, I have this problem also. The (painful) solution is to convert the files to mp3 from m4a using something like Switch or DRM converter. I have not seen that Apple is addressing this problem. BTW - your music will still play on other devices but do not sync them if you have tried to play them on your MacBook or they will stop.

I ended up restoring to my backup from last week to get back to the last version of iTunes. I will think about the update again once I hear that the problem has been resolved. Going back and re-encoding thousands of perfectly good files is simply not an option at the moment.

Yes exactly. If the files were fine in iTunes all along (years and many previous iTunes versions) and no longer fine after updating to iTunes version 12.9.4, the issue is clearly 12.9.4 and that is where investigation is required on Apple Support's part. A change was clearly made intentionally or unintentionally to file types that can be played in iTunes. Of course it may not be that simple, but that is how this should be approached.

More about this issue with iTunes 12.9.4 update

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250269935?answerId=250543014022#250543014022