iTunes song preview time is cutting off.

You're right! Itunes support is completely clueless.

I sent them this thread link and they responded telling me to go to a website and give feedback and ideas on how I think the store could improve.

Well, they're not going to have to worry about it now because I'm going to purchase my songs from amazon.com.

It depends on the song and how long it is. Some will play for 30 seconds and some for more.

I also had 64 bit versions before but then after the 10.6 update the problem started. In thinking about it -- I THINK I may have had a Windows update around that time. When I re-installed I didn't actually reinstall the 64 bit version. So my thinking was that something in the update or something else with Iturnes caused the initial problem and then the only way to fix it was to uninstall and reinstall the 64 bit version. Apparently that's not it for everyone. I did just check the store again and I'm still getting full previews. May not be a fix for all but if you're still having the problem it might be worth trying the uninstall and reinstall from that URL.

I agree this has been incredibly frustrating. I was lucky that the rep I reached actually was workign with me to fix it (as opposed to sending me to a bunch of totally unrelated web pages.) 😟

If it's not an OS issue not sure what else I did differently that would have fixed it. Can't think of any other changes I made.

I've got iTunes on three different computers.. my 64bit laptop is the only one having the 'cut-off after 7 seconds' problem. After reading BARBPF's post from 6/4, I downloaded the current 64bit itunes file and compared it to the 64bit iTunes file still in my downloads folder from the last install. (I've kept up with all the updates as they've become available). The current version was bigger than the last version in my downloads file.. all that meant to me was it was different in some way from what I had installed. With nothing to lose, I uninstalled iTunes (64bit), then installed the current (64bit) version.. and my 'cut-off after 7 seconds' problem is now gone.

Don't know if it'll work for everyone, but wanted to put it out there in case it might help someone. iTunes support hasn't been so supportive.

i'm currently having issues with this as well. and this was never an issue before about 3 weeks ago. everything was fine before that, now its all jacked up.

my first issue was with downloads. i would purchase an album, and anywhere from 1 or 2 songs to half an album would either have incomplete songs, or no song at all. what i mean is, a 4 minute song would start, and anywhere between 30 seconds to 2 minutes in the song would cut. my progress bar would show that the song is supposed to last 4 minutes, but it would cut. or sometimes, the song would have no song at all, and simply skip to the next song. the only fix i have found is to delete the song file from my library and re-download from the "download previous purchases" tab. but sometimes even that wouldn't work, as the new file was still incomplete and would require another download. i even tried turning off the option for multiple downloads at once, thinking that might be an issue, but i'm not entirely sure if that fixed it or has corrected the problem.

the other issue i'm having is with the previews, like everyone else here. some previews last 5 seconds, others 37-45. none of them have lasted the full 1:30.

i'm on a laptop with windows 7. i tested itunes out on my wife's imac, and it works fine. full previews, and she states she has had no issues with recent downloads. so i'm leaning towards this being a windows only issue.

Great to know. Thanks! I was wondering if it had worked for anyone else.

So far the 64 bit version of itunes is working. Playing about 7 albums and no skips. I followed the uninstall steps from: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1925. Be sure to uninstall each program in the order they recommend, along with any folders left.

I noticed I had an old version of Apple Mobile Device Support that could not be removed. I got the message "The older version of Apple Mobile Device Support Cannot be removed. Contact your technical support group." In order to remove it I downloaded the Windows Installer CleanUp utility from the following page:

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4459

After uninstalling all itunes related programs, reboot your PC and install the 64 bit version. Keeping my fingers crossed that it keeps working....

Bad news. It's once again stopped working 😟 Worked fine for the last few days-- went to preview songs and they are all cutting off again. Unbelievable. Going to try and re-connect with the original rep that was helping so I don't have to start from the beginning.

I just noticed this issue today. I was previewing a song I was thinking of buying. I have randomly tried songs with both 90 second and 30 second previews. As for me, it seems the previews only go about 1/3 to *maybe* 1/2 of the way through before they cut out.

Fortunately I haven't bought anything from iTunes in a couple of weeks, and those songs seem to be working fine.

If this problem is also affecting the songs/albums being purchased, I can guarantee I am not going to waste my money buying files that cut out on me. Until there is a foolproof way of fixing this problem, I will not be purchasing anything from iTunes.

I contacted Apple about this and got a response providing me some fairly boilerplate suggestions, including disabling firewalls, reconfiguing my hosts file, going into the command prompt and flushing my DNS. I tried all of this and even rejiggered my internet connection settings to be in line with what Apple suggests. I even uninstalled Norton against my better judgement so as to reconfigure my firewall settings to something that iTunes seems to "approve" of. Hopefully I will be able to reinstall it without having to pay for it again!

None of this worked.

I then uninstalled and reinstalled every Apple product I have in my system except for iCloud. (That one I simply uninstalled...I noticed that it downloaded with my iTunes v 10.6.1.7, and wondered if that or Bonjour had something to do with this problem. I don't particularly want iCloud, so why reinstall it for now?)

Even after reinstalling everything, this problem still persisted.

The fact of the matter is that until now, I never ever ever had to go through these gymnastics to try to get iTunes to do something that it had been doing flawlessly for years. I have just spent three hours going through every suggestion that Apple could give me online as to why all of a sudden I can't play a full preview of a song where I have never had a problem with this before. That is, until I downloaded the latest version of iTunes. It seems abundantly clear to me that the problem lies not with my computer or how it is set up but with the latest version of iTunes.

I know, I feel for ya! I really liked itunes too! I've spent over $200 the past 2 months buying songs because I got a brand new ipod...never had one before. Everything was fine the first month or so. Now I can't listen to any songs in the store to see if I even want to purchase them. I liked itunes better than amazon.com, but I can't use a site that doesn't work. I've tried every suggestion from the community and nothing works. I've uninstalled and installed 4 times now. Contacted Apple and they gave me the whole run around. They simply do not understand.

For what its worth I just replied to Apple's e-mail and sent them a long screed (basically a re-hash of my previous post) that included a copy of my iTunes diagnostic that more or less told them that there was no communications problem on my end, my firewall was properly set up, etc etc. Hopefully they will respond with something that isnt just boilerplate suggestions, but I'm not holding my breath. 😀

When it stopped working again I went back to Apple and got a more generic uninstall and reinstall response. I tried Andro's method (uninstalling in the right order, rebooting, etc.) Unfortunately, it didn't work. Meantime though I did respond to the mail from Apple with a link to this (and other threads) and got back a note that apparently Apple was working on this.

At this point I've spent so many hours on this in terms of the uninstalls and reinstalls - I'm just giving up. I'll preview/buy from Amazon until I get a fix 😟

At least you got a note acknowledging there is a problem... I sent links to this forum and all I got was a note saying we all have computer or firewall issues! Amazon is going to be getting lots of business.

Received an email this morning from Apple and just thought I'd share with everyone:

I have looked into this matter and all I can tell you at this time is that iTunes is actively investigating this matter for you and all the other customers that have experienced the same issue here over the past few weeks.

Apple is currently working as fast as they can toward a resolution for the issue you and others have reported.

You will receive an email after the matter has been investigated and further information is available.

Thank you for your patience and understanding and I hope you have a great day.