iTunes Match incomplete/cut off songs

The steps shown are identical for both PC and Mac.

Sorry if this is a stupid question but can you provide me with the insruction on how to create a secure back up of all songs? Super paranoid about this step and want to make sure I have it right.

Thank you!

Certainly not a stupid question. For secure backup a low cost route is to use a separate USB drive or Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive and copy your music folder across into a new top level folder with time & date in the title. The drive then needs to be stored at a remote location (office, or other physically separate building).

There are many software packages that will periodically create such backups for you but you must manage the physical media, ensuring that it is not all only at one location.

The idea is to ensure that you have a full backup accessible in case of severe error caused by hardware failure, power spikes, fire and so on.

Note: Rolling backups generated by Time Machine on OSX should be a supplement only, they are often used with co-located hardware and many users have little experience of recovering large stores such as Music libraries - they are insecure local backups, valuable but insufficient on there own.

Is there a way to consolidate all of my music to one location to ensure ITunes returns to the way it was before the rebuild?

Yes, under the File menu in iTunes you can select Library, Organise, Consolidate option. Plus under the Edit menu you select Preferences, Advanced tab, and select Keep Files Organised.

Not sure if this is going to keep working, but here's another workaround that I found that's been solving the issue for me so far.

Basically convert the songs to a new file type, either in iTunes or with something like Audio Converter. Here's my step-by-step.

1. Well, shootdarn, half the songs on The Decemberists' 'The King Is Dead' are cutting off. Stupid stupid stupid cuss cuss cuss RAGE.

2. Don't panic.

3. On your desktop, make sure 'The King Is Dead' is downloaded from the Cloud. As in, those files are on your compy, babe.

4. Select the tracks, convert to file type of your choice. Me? Oh, well, I go AAC 320kbps. I know, right?

5. Select the original tracks. In 'Songs' view, under the 'Kind' column (you should have that enabled in your View Options), the original tracks that were downloaded from the Cloud will be 'Matched AAC.'

6. Delete these from your iTunes Library AND the Cloud.

7. Delete the new files (in my case, the AAC 320s) from the iTunes Library ONLY.

8. Find those new files on your computer, wherever they are. Mine are in Music > iTunes > iTunes Music > [The Decemberists] > [The King Is Dead]

9. Drop those monstertruckers back into your Library. Let Match gobble them up again.

10. TRIUMPH. Everything is golden.

If your trouble-songs are Protected AACs, you can add the step of burning them to a CD and re-ripping them to your computer. Because that totally works.

This might not work for everybody, but it worked for me. Awaaaaayyyy!

I've been having this problem too with a couple songs, tried lots of the fixes and no luck. Hadn't posted here yet but was going to soon. However, just tried again and... my first thought - iOS 7 fixed it! I know of two songs that always cut out partway through and when I listened to the first one, it played perfectly. Then I listened to the second one and the problem was still there. Bizarre... I guess I'll go through and try deleting the music data, deleting from the cloud, etc. and hope that they work now on iOS 7.

It appears as though itunes match is down right now. affecting ios devices and itunes applications on windows and macs. see other posts today in this forum.

So this this a problem that has been going on since 2012 and there is still no definite fix that isn't some bs work around?

I just had this problem last night on my iPhone when I bought a $20 album. Some songs work and some don't. It's the same issue for both my pc and iPhone. This is just another issue with the many issues I have has with apple.

My phone renewal comes in June of 2014. I will be switching to android/google play store/ amazon. So tired of Apple's crap.

And sorry for the poor grammar and spelling. Typing on the iPhone is a chore in itself.

I just talked to Apple Support about this. Although they word things always diplomatically they seem to be aware of this problem, but dont have a fix for this problem yet. The support agent just assumed this may be related to the new iOS7. I told him he should look through the many threads concerning this issue on their own support forums to see that this has been going on much longer. So, except for some of the beforementioned workarounds that may or may not work, there is NO official solution to this.

As for myself I actually only startet noticing this problem about two weeks ago when I matched the latest album by Placebo. I didnt buy it from the iTunes store, but Amazon. Matched them on iTunes match, re-downloaded them to my iphone and all of them cut off about a minute before the end and skipped to the next song thus having the playhead still playing the first song. The re-downloaded tracks played fine on my Macbook, the problem only occurs on my iphone and not with every album or song, but randomly, but if it happend its always full albums that are affected. Like Placebo's, the new Kings of Leon etc. Others and particularly the old ones I had matched for a longer period all work fine ! I tried to find out what would happen if I buy the same songs that dont play correctly when downloaded with itunes match from the itunes store. I tried it with placebo and they play flawlessly. itunes store download fine, itunes match download cutting off.

So it seems that macthed songs downloaded from itunes match servers are coming off different servers than the ones in the itunes store. The iTunes match server seems to corrupt something when Apple puts songs on there, but only for iOs devices. I truly hope they find a fix for this soon, otherwise I will just have to end my subscription as this needs to be rock solid for me.

Solutions like full erase, reset and new syncing of content to my iphone is out of the question. I know how painfui this is from syncing my almost completely used 64GB from backups to new iphones. Also, I dont think anybody needs to worry it only affects older iOs devices. I had this problem first with my iphone 5 , now I received a new iphone 5S with iOS7 pre-installed by Apple. Same problem.

I urge each and everyone of you to report this problem to Apple directly through their support phone numbers and email. Keep posting your experiences here on the forums, BUT the more complaints Apple gets directly the more aware they are of this problem

So, to a add a new dimension to this problem... this just happened to me while listening to iTunes Radio. I had listened to 5-6 songs with no problem, was halfway through another song and it just skipped to the beginning of a new one. The progress bar and title and artist were all still for the song that had been cut off. Sigh...

It would make sense, since even the matched songs that I dont download but just try to stream via itunes match behave the same way as if they were downloaded, cut off and skip

I don't know if this is helpful, but I seem to have stumbled upon a "fix" for this. I recently got an iPhone 5S and ever since switching to the 5S, I no longer have this problem. So Apple's fix for this problem: wait until you can upgrade to a 5S and then fork out $200 and boom! Problem solved! 😉

It would be nice if this were true…

The problem didn't start for me UNTIL I bought an iPhone 5s. Bummer. 😢