Q: iTunes song preview time is cutting off.

Same thing happening to me.....seems to be related to the last release upgrade. The Apple support guys seem to be oblivious to this issue.....they're probably not using 10.6

I've been back and forth with them and even pointed to this thread -- though it was shorter at that time I uninstalled, installed windows update and reinstalled itunes -- no change. Plus now the Windows update msessed something up and I can't fix it even with a system restore.

The procedures I posted earlier about activating Genius and using Open DNS server DO NOT WORK. I was able to play two full albums without any skipping which gave me the false impression that it worked, initially.  However, I played a 3rd album and the skipping started again. This has to be related to Itunes 10.6.  Too bad Apple hasn't a clue

I have experienced the same problem on my Dell Windows 7 laptop with iTunes 10.6: on average song previews stop at the 7 second mark.  I haven't tried uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes since I'm afraid I will lose my established library/playlists and apparently that doesn't solve the problem.  Has anybody solved this yet?  I've never had this problem with iTunes in previous versions either.

I have sent many emails to Apple iTunes support. They really don't get it. I even sent them a link to this page and asked the Rep in India to please escalate the problem to the right department. I told him I thought the problem was related to iTunes 10.6

I think the only thing we can do is wait for the next release and see if the issue goes away. If anyone else comes up with another solution, please post.

I am having the same issue with the preview songs cutting off around the 5 to 7 second mark. It started about 3 weeks ago right after I downloaded an album.

It downloaded but at the end said the download failed due to a network timeout error. I clicked out of the error dialogue box and checked my "Purchased" items folder and it did seem there was a problem, no songs were there only a placeholder of the album cover (or something of that nature). Nothing happened when I clicked on it. However, when I closed and then restarted itunes the entire album was there and there have been no problems with those songs.

Some here are saying they believe they previews cutting off have something to do with the 10.6 upgrade, however I still have 10.5.1.42 and have the problem.

I am running up-to-date Windows 7 Professional with Viper Anti-virus. I don't for a moment think it has anything to do with windows updates, anti-virus or any other 'windows' issues. I believe it is within itunes in its' preview player software.

Dear iTunes, if this thread is being monitored by a rep, please be aware that if I cannot preview more than 5-7 seconds of a song you can rest assured I will not be purchasing any further music through itunes until this issue is resolved and will be taking my business elsewhere in the interim.

This problem just started out of the blue for me.  First Genius update hung up forever, then the preview stopped working - though some work and some don't. I'm getting anything from 8 to 16 seconds.  If I keep clicking it may go longer.  I contacted Apple and got the same song & dance everyone else did.  I tried all the fixes, nothing works.  Apple is not listening ... I will take my biz elsewhere unless they get this fixed. The only way I can listen is via the iPhone.

I decided to pull out my laptop since I haven't done any updates on it for a while to see if I could duplicate the preview skips and network errors. The laptop is running Windows 7 and I proceeded to do all updates to the Windows OS. The laptop is also running Norton Internet Security which I also updated.

When I opened itunes, it prompted me to update the software, currently running the older version - 10.6.0.40.

I did not do the update and proceeded to preview as many albums as possible. I have not encountered any skips with this older version. The previews play for the full 1:30 which is the correct amount of time I used to get.

When I first opened Itunes, I did receive a message that the Bonjour service was disabled. I ignored that message. Not sure if that's at all related.

Weird....

I'm having the same problem. I've been a long time iTunes user. I've previewed and bought lots of music without issue until recently. About 2 weeks ago previews started cutting out around the 7 sec. mark. I hadn't upgraded to the latest version and thought that that might be the problem, but it wasn't. My connection is fine and I've downloaded a couple of purchases successfully since the song preview problem began. I contacted iTunes support, but they don't seem to have a clue what I'm talking about. Support ask me what song I was trying to purchase. I'd specifically said it was "preview song" that was cutting out after a few seconds, not purchases. 

I hope that they get the problem resolved. I rely on song previews for many of my purchases.

I've been having the exact same problem. Some songs go for the full preview, some cut out after 3 seconds, but most stop around the 7 second mark. The Itunes rep had no idea what i was talking about, and tried to solve a completely different problem for me. 

I am having the same issue as well.  I'm getting very frustrated and can't tell you how many times I've restarted my computer now after trying something new.  All worked fine prior to this week, so something has happened within the past 7-10 days to cause this.

I MAY have an answer! I've been emailing back and forth with Apple and just received the below. I tried it and so far I'm five for five completed previews.

We have reviewed your account once again and it looks like you are using a Windows  7  version 64 bit. Just so you know, there is a special version of iTunes for that.

I suggest you to uninstall your current iTunes and reinstall the new version.

iTunes 10.6.1 for Windows (64 bit)

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1427

I have encountered the exact same issues (previews stopping around 9-12 seconds) on two different computers with two different iTunes accounts. The computers run two different versions of Windows and are equipped with two different anti-viruses. Both iTunes accounts are behaving exactly the same, so this is not a computer/OS/anti-virus problem, no matter what Apple says. It is an iTunes problem that showed up (at least for me) as soon as I installed 10.6.1.

I just previewed 4 songs on iTunes, and for the first time since this preview cut off problem started, each preview ran the full length without incident.   I will wait some more before I resume purchasing music from iTunes on my computer in case the problem returns.  I will purchase using my iPod touch in the interim.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my first post on this issue.

Again, I don't believe this has anything to do with Windows 7 64-bit and itunes 64-bit compatible software. I have had Win7 64-bit running on a new computer for 18 months with a fresh install of itunes also 18 months ago. I believe itunes asks you to download  the appropriate version, 32 or 64-bit and even gives instruction on how to locate that info on your computer. I am pretty sure I have 64-bit itunes but if by some chance I messed up and have 32-bit installed, either way I have had no problems until a couple of weeks ago. Apple seems to be totally clueless.