iTunes cuts my songs short

I am having the same problem with my older "protected AAC files" after I did a backup and reinstall of a Windows OS. I used an external HD to back up all of my library, and out of the 550'ish songs I have bought ( $450 + Hello?), about 300 of them are truncuated as well, and end in random spots.

I have tried everything, and now I am out 300 or so songs from my library.

The file size matches the time on the song, it just drops and skips to the next song.

I tried calling as well. No one will talk to you unless you plunk down 50 clams. My 30gig iPod is still working after 4 years and I suppose that doesn't count either.

All my "purchased" AAC's imported perfectly, artwork and all. Some of them are "in the cloud" and I could re-download them myself. Moot point.

All they have to do is let you redownload the music you already paid for, which I can see in my account history. but I guess that's not an option. Highly frustrated.

What worked for me is to delete the song from the ITunes library (but not the file from the hard drive). From the File menu, add the file back into the ITunes library. The songs now play for their entire length.

It wasn't that simple for me. I deleted the song in the iTunes library, re-added it and it still cut short.

Even deleted the song off the hard drive, re-imported the same song from my backup HD and it still did the same thing.

I went back and forth with customer service, and they basically explained that I could delete the song off my hard drive and in iTunes, and I was able to redownload the file that I had already purchased - which was the only solution that worked for me.

No, I had truncated files, or something in the header/footer of the file with the protection data was corrupt.

I actually even plunked down the .30 per song and upgraded a few of them to the new high quality format.

The only issue is had was the old style "protected AAC" files. The newer format was fine.

This is happening for me as well. So far here are the two things I have discovered: 1) They are songs purchased directly via iTunes; 2) All songs that are affected in my particular situation were songs that were all purchased on 7/6/2006. So far I am 100% on all songs on that date that are impacted. I deleted all songs that were purchased on that day and then iTunes re-added them to my library since I had already purchased them before. Since I reloaded the songs I have seen no issues. I don't know if your issue is related to that particular date or not, but that is what it was for me. My suggestion is you make a list or keep track of the songs that you have noticed the problem with and see if they were downloaded or purchased at the same time.

Hey all:

I have a fair library (10,000 songs) and have acquired mp3s via various methods (cd ripping, etc, etc).

I wanted to avail myself of itunes match capability to let me download consistent quality aac files for my library.

I won't go into usability so much, but itunes Match deleted many song files, changed title incorrectly, matched some, uploaded others.

I matched what I could and downloaded 256kaac files. Simple!

Now I found that about 155 of my 10,000 songs are cut short. Every one of them that experienced this fault were matched aac files. I played some of them with Windows Media Player to verify that it was the file, not itunes.

I had to go through each file and play the last 1/5th to see if it skipped to the next song. I identified them (5 hours of work). Then I sequestered the bad files by "moving" them to a new directory, then added them to the library, then ran match, then downloaded new files to replace them...

What a pain. I feel your pain...

When I get through this exercise I will be turning off Match for good.

BannonB