itunes chopping off end of songs now that i signed up for match

Well, I am extremely sad to report that Ducky's solution did not work for me. 😟

In addition, most of my artwork is now missing - every album where artwork was d/led from iTunes. That'll take awhile to fix.

To refresh your memories, I have only one album I have identified where all songs are stopping around 30 seconds early. I have not identified any other albums this is happening to even though I have a total of 24,000+ songs. The songs were ripped from a CD but all of them "matched" to iTunes. I have deleted them and redownloaded them from iTunes. And among other things, have tried Ducky's solution. But alas, the problem is still happening.

By the way, the songs play fine on my computer, but cut off on my iPhone.

Oh well. Maybe I'll figure this out someday...

Um...actually, now another album by the same artist has the problem. Crap. 😟

And now it's doing it to songs that were "uploaded" even. How is that even possible? If it was uploaded, the track should all be there. Wish I hadn't screwed with this, it just made things worse...

There are many different problems/solutions consolidated in this thread (itunes music library corruption - see Ducky's solution, itunes match and IOS playback chop and splice problem - see my solution a few posts up, and probably even bad rips being blamed on apple)

Since your music is playing fine in itunes and not on IOS (iphone), do what i did -

1. For your problematic albums, copy the files (whether they are CD rips or downloaded Matched copies, they must be working in itunes first) out into a temporary folder.

2. Delete the songs from itunes, and make sure to delete them from the iCloud. Delete the album from your iPhone (Swipe right on artist/album name).

3. Add ONE song from the album to the itunes library. Wait for it to upload or "match". On your phone it should only display ONE song in the album. Playback the song in your iPhone.

4. If it is still chopped off, we have a different problem. Look elsewhere.

5. If it plays to the end, upload the rest of the songs one by one after their status changes to "uploaded" or "matched".

My take is there is just some bad metadata (probably related to end track timing or gapless info) being uploaded to the match servers, and the same metadata is applied to the same album on all your devices. Uploading single songs seems to fix that problematic bit of info.

(Edit - it might be a painful process, but thankfully i had only one album like that - if you have alot of problems you might want to google for a mp3 validator to see if it helps, again always backup before making drastic changes)

jonathan, I tried that before I tried Ducky's suggestion. I have tried pretty much everything in this thread except things that involve resetting/re-installing, etc.

I have deleted the original offending album from iTunes and iCloud several times and added it back several ways. By re-ripping the CD, by moving all the files to the desktop and re-importing them, and yes, even adding them back one by one.

I guess I can try it again on this new offending album. Pretty frustrated at this point, especially since this new album that wasn't originally affected now is.

Last night, I even restored the original iTunes Library XML and ITL files that I removed to implement Ducky's solution, but it did not fix the second album that was originally okay. And the originally affected album is still affected too.

This now happens to every song I add to my library via drag and drop. It didn't happen just now when i used the file-> add file to library method.

All,

See my solution posted on May 21, 2012 5:40 PM. It works! Just do it and your music is fine!

You mean the one where you suggest to delete the songs and then go to the iTunes store and re-download music you purchased from there? There is one tiny little problem with that solution. My affected songs are from ripped CDs, and although they did MATCH, they were not purchased from the iTunes store and do not show up where you suggest to re-download them from.

I noticed this problem sometime ago. It seems to be one that has popped up in iTunes since really it's inception. And it's happen for a variety of issues. I've done a few experiments to find out what causes this issue.

1. Drag-N-Dropping your old "iTunes" folder into the iTunes application after doing a reinstall/clean install. It seems this fragments a lot of text in the file paths in your iTunes folder. Which is always a surefire way to have an application not work right. Ironically this is the only import method that I have ever seen the "determining gapless playback" happening. Which is the software protocol in iTunes to not allow the very problem to happen. The Drag-N-Dropping method I think spawns many problems for iTunes Libraries since for many years it was the only way many users carried over their libraries from older Macs. Thus continuiously creating and further fragmenting the library. A theory, but still a sound one.

2. Following the Apple approved method of simply placing your "iTunes" folder into the Music folder. Then opening iTunes while holding down the Option Key, to select the Library...also causes this problem.

3. It seems, at least in my case, to be limited largely to .M4P files. A few non-protected songs purchased from the store have this problem, too. Something to do with the fact that they are protected files.

4. There also seems to be a bug that causes this problem since they allowed you to re-download "Purchased" music. Songs that are in my library still show up as "Not On This Computer." Obviously iTunes does not properly update the tagging on your songs ever.

5. The only way I've found to fix a song that stops (mine all stop either after the 15 second mark or the 5 second mark) is to re-download it. Even then the problem will happen again to random .M4P files when I either move the library to another computer or re-install on the current computer. Which is rather annoying since about 20 of my purchased songs which became corrupted are no longer available on the iTunes Music Store. Also many of the songs you have purchased and re-download often come from totally different albums. Which is randomly strange and weird. Songs you purchased that are now "Album Only" are no longer capable of being re-downloaded from the cloud. Which frankly is illegal if you've already purchased them once before.

Basically for the past 2 years everytime I have gotten a new Mac or re-installed....after I am done I go through all of my songs (1,500+) and skip ahead to the 15-5 second mark and if they skip ahead to the next song...I re-download them. Annoying as heck and should not be. I have examined all of the file information for any flaws or playback stops and there never are ones. I even have pulled the files out and played them through other audio programs and they still stop between the 15 or 5 second mark.

A week ago I grew annoyed and simply wiped my iMac. Downloaded everything from the "Purchased" cloud. Then re-imported all of my CD's. Took many hours. I kept my corrupted library to extract any non-corrupted files that were no longer available for re-download from the cloud. This time I chose to select File/Add To Library and then selected THE SONG ITSELF and not any folders they were in lest any bad file paths be added to my new library.

We all know iTunes is frankly bloatware now. Hopefully Apple will get off it's duff and install some proper diagnostic and repair software within whatever the next iTunes incarnation is to fix these problems.

Bit of an update. I decided, for the sake of science essentially, to reformat and add my iTunes Library again. I want to point out that this library was entirely encoded and downloaded in 10.7.4 with iTunes 10.6.3. This time around, following Apple's guidelines for adding an iTunes Library to a new and/or reformated mac...actually worked. I listened to the last 3 seconds of each song (Protected & Purchased AAC's only) proving that none of them skipped ahead. Here's what I have figured out...

Clearly every now and then, say every third update to iTunes....to totally start over. I think a lot of things encoded in much older versions of iTunes don't mesh well with newer versions of the application. That doesn't so much mean re-downloading purchases and re-importing your CD's. I think "importing" them via the File menu "Add to Library" option as a batch (All the songs in one folder and not in subfolders) will be sufficient.

So basically every couple of updates I am going to back-up my iTunes Folder. Take ALL of the songs and place them into one folder. Then import all of them after wiping iTunes. The software SHOULD reassemble everything inside your new iTunes Folder. And I believe it will the gapless playback analyzation.

I view this entirely as an iTunes software problem. Files don't really go bad unless an application has done something to them. Given the fact that audio files now have multiple things that can be edited (Band name, genre, composer, etc, etc) there obviously is a high risk of corruption. What I find amusing is I cannot find any literature anywhere, anyone having this problem with MPEG-3, only MPEG-4. Curious note. But I think it's iTunes fault.

As for the things iTunes Match is giving you access to so you don't have to always import your CD's. I think that's honestly strictly a series of clustermucks on Apple's side and not in iTunes. In my earlier post I stated that some songs if you purchased them and then re-download them will show up coming from another album. It'll be the same artist, but it'll be another album which also features that particular song. So there is obviously some crosschecking problems that Apple should remedy. Yes, it's nice to be able to still get the song if you lose, but let's maintain some continuity.

This is also the first time ever that I have had purchased music "Not On This Computer" show up telling me all of my purchased music has been downloaded. But...if I change one space in one album it tells me I haven't downloaded that album. Again. Apple needs to work on their side of things.

I've come to two conclussions.

1. Drag N Drop ain't a good idea. Ever. Importing them via the Import feature is the safest way to do it. If it takes an hour or two, so be it.

2. There are several fixes for these problems for both iTunes Match and Purchased/Protected Music cutting out.

And...Apple needs to fix this. iTunes has reached the end of it's lifespan. Too much under the hood means too much can go wrong.

Short summary to keep you up to date: my songs are a mix of ripped CDs and downloaded MP3s from sites other than iTunes (like Amazon). Most match, some don't. I have identified two albums where all songs on the album cut off around 30 seconds early on my iPhone only. They play fine in iTunes on my PC.

I have tried everythig in this thread.

I just tried playing my affected songs on my iPhone using other music player apps than the one that is built-in to the iPhone itself and the songs played to the end with no problems...

Unfortunately, I haven't found a 3rd party music player app I like yet, but I'm sure going to try since they play my music and the built-in player will not. Quality work there, Apple.

Okay, so my front-runner third-party music player app right now is Smart Player.

Cons: It will not automatically d/l songs from iTunes Match for you. You must use the built-in player to d/l what you want, then Smart Player will play them. Also, it does not appear to have an EQ built-in and it does not work with the OOB EQ in iPhone Settings.

Pros: First off, it doesn't cut off any of my songs early. Secondly, it is better than the built-in player in almost every other respect too. 🙂

I remember reading about some apps that were essentially EQ apps, but were obviously music players as well. I'll check into them as well, since I do like to be able to adjust EQ settings.

Yes, deleting and re-downloading from iTunes Match is the only solution I have found for the problem as I am having it: the songs ARE corrupted for me, and it's not just a metadata problem. When I open the songs in an audio editing program you can see that the audio just isn't there: it stops before the end of the song. So copying it to another computer or re-importing it won't fix anything.

The problem is that iTunes doesn't KNOW which of the thousand songs I've upgraded via iTunes Match are bad downloads, and I won't know either until I happen to play one that skips before it ends.

Here's the only solution I've found that will inspect these songs one at a time and list the bad ones:

Create a Playlist of all songs you've downloaded (upgraded) via iTunes Match.

Plug in an iPod (etc.) and wipe out whatever songs are on it already.

In the iTunes setting sfor that iOS device, tell it to recompress the songs to 128k AAC as it puts the songs onto the iOS device.

Now sync that entire Playlist to the device and wait, wait, wait.

Result: any song that cannot be converted by iTunes to 128k AAC (because the song is, in fact, bad) will be listed in the resulting error dialog.

Here's the total suck part: iTunes doesn't let you save that list of errors off to a text file. You have to do one or more screen captures and save off the list, then manually go find those songs, delete them and re-download them. Total PIA but it's the best I have come up with, since I can find no other utility or means to batch-check that these files are valid.

Good idea, DSBenson.

This kind of problem could be solved if Apple would put some kind of repair utility into iTunes. Since iTunes is most likely being discontinued in the next year. I hope the next song player software they release will feature some fix for this.

Amen to that. iTunes really needs an option to rebuild the database based on song data. Manually trashing it and having it rebuild makes me nervous about losing playlists or ratings.

And at this point it probably wouldn't need to be a full rebuild, "Fix Song Lengths" would be enough to solve this problem.