Why is iTunes only playing a portion of a purchased song?

Try playing the files with Quicktime Player to see if they are really short. If they are

Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519 - enabled with iTunes 10.3 and newer; not available in all countries; apps, books (not audiobooks), music, t.v. shows, and movies (some - not all studios have permitted this). Movies available in the USA only. Downloading previously purchased movies and TV shows requires iTunes 10.6 or later. Discontinued items not available. For items not included in the iCloud list, or locations or computer systems where iCloud is not (yet?) available, you only get one download per fee paid. Apple notes it is your responsibility to back up your purchases.

Select the store on the left side of iTunes.

Click on Purchased on the right side under Quick Links.

You can re-download your available previous purchases.

If they play all the way through then you are having a problem several others have complained about but nobody posts enough information for anybody to try to see what the factors may be that are causing this.

i clicked on that article and did waht was asked but that didnt work bc it says it was done downloading. 2 songs do that and they dont play on my ipad either.itunes shut down on me for one of them but not the other. on a different dicussion they suggested that i might have downloaded a ringtone but i checked and thats not it. soo.. any ideas??

i called tech support and they said to highlight the song, right click and delete. then go into itunes store and hit buy and say you and to buy it,, it will then ask if you want to redownload!! it really works!

Ive been having the same issue going on. I purchased and downloaded an entire album and part of a song would play and then it would switch to the next one. Some of the songs wouldn't play at all! I went to my library and deleted the songs and then went to purchased and redownloaded them. Some of the songs played all the way through but most did the same thing as before. I then deleted the songs that won't play all the way through and went to the itunes store to purchase them again and it asked to redownload them so i did. Still I am having the same issue. It is so frustrating because I spent money for these songs and now I can't listen to them on my computer or on my iphone. If anyone else has different advice from what I have already tried please help 😟