ITunes corrupting my m4a files

Hi,
Occasionally, a song that I ripped from CD into iTunes just stops playing or starts to skip. It becomes corrupted by iTunes somehow after playing fine for months.
I am using the latest iTunes (9.0.1) on Windows XP. I also have an iPhone 3GS with the latest firmware.
When I tried playing the latest file to become corrupted with Quicktime instead of through iTunes I got the following error message: "Error -2002: a bad public movie atom was found in the movie". It is not a movie file however.
I don't know if the error is the same with all the files the become corrupted since this is the first time I have started to investigate the problem in more depth.
Has anyone else experienced this? It is quite annoying. I have to delete the m4a file an re-import the song.
Hopefully, iTunes will be fixed to stop it corrupting the files but in the meantime does anyone know of an easy way to fix the file other than re-ripping the song?
Thanks for any help,
Scott.

I've got this problem too. It's been going on for 6 to 8 months now but I didn't realize exactly what was going on. Files I'd just bought off the iTunes store started skipping on my iPod, and then it extended to older files I'd bought months or years earlier. It didn't affect any of my ripped tracks (which I rip to MP3 using LAME, so they're not AAC files).
I just assumed it was my iPod dying, refusing to play AAC properly anymore, because they played fine in iTunes. But I just got an iPhone and now I hear blips in the songs in just the spots where my old iPod would skip them. I just tried Quicktime Player, and while it doesn't give me any errors I do hear blips in the music there too.
I know it's not my hard drive because it started on my old G4 and they're still getting further corrupted on my new Mac Pro (songs that weren't previously skipping are skipping now). It's gotten to the point where about 60% of my purchased music is unplayable! A month or two back I tried setting up a brand-new iTunes library and re-imported all of my music to it, and that didn't solve the issue either (they're still getting corrupted).
I could get iTunes support to let me redownload all the corrupt songs, but I'm afraid that'll be a useless "solution" if it's going to re-corrupt them all again.

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Why does iTunes corrupting my music files!??

Ok its been a week since I've gone out an bought myself a well 160gb iPod Classic, looks fantastic and have used mates iPods before with no problem.
A week later... I've been pulling my hair out.. not good at my age.
Every song I play in iTunes (any version) or transfer to the iPod ends up garbled, distorted, skips the file all together, plays like a chipmunk.
Converted a movie to .mov played fine in iTunes and perfect on the iPod.
All other music programs play these files fine! Until I open up iTunes and right click on a song and click get info, pop up tells me about the file etc.
Closing that and then trying to play the song in another music app the song fails!
Playing it in Media Player Classic outputs this error:
Media Type 0:
Unknown
AMMEDIATYPE:
majortype: MEDIATYPE_Stream {E436EB83-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770}
subtype: MEDIASUBTYPE_MPEG1Audio {E436EB87-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770}
formattype: TIMEFORMATNONE {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
bFixedSizeSamples: 1
bTemporalCompression: 0
lSampleSize: 1
cbFormat: 0
Media Type 1:
Unknown
AMMEDIATYPE:
majortype: MEDIATYPE_Stream {E436EB83-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770}
subtype: TIMEFORMATNONE {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
formattype: TIMEFORMATNONE {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
bFixedSizeSamples: 1
bTemporalCompression: 0
lSampleSize: 1
cbFormat: 0
Guys and Gals I've tried everything over the last week and thinking about returning this headache. For the money spent on it I'd expect it to work straight away, the iPod itself crashed 45mins into playin with it trying to sync music to it!!
Seriously any help is great. I've tried the apple support page and everything is up to date in terms of drivers and software, directX etc.

Go to iTunes > Preferences > Store and turn off
Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases
Share details about your library with Apple
On any iOS device go to Settings > Music and turn off
Show All Music
Close and reopen iTunes and/or reset the device and you should see your version of the metadata for each track rather than the original store data.
tt2

Opening/importing m4a files

I have a large number of audiobooks as m4a format files. When I open them in iTunes they appear as music files in my library. Is it possible to set iTunes to recognize m4a files as audiobooks?
Thanks for your help.
Paul.

Thank you, one and all, for your responses. I have already been doing what you suggest, but you have missed the point which prompted me to make this posting: LARGE NUMBER of m4a files (note: LARGE >= 200) - I have halted after 25 or so awaiting an alternative. So back to my original question:
Is there a way of instructing iTunes 12 to recognize m4a files as audiobooks and NOT music (so that I don't have to alter each one's GET INFO>OPTIONS manually)? It seems this is a default in iTunes but I can't seem to see where this might be changed (an ini file, perhaps, or a registry setting?).
Paul.

Can I use iTunes to convert m4a to mp3 for use on my car stereo

I would like to burn a playlist to a CD for playing on my car stereo. If I use the default audio option, the CD sounds terrible, so I guess I need to select the mp3 option instead. When I do that, however, I'm told that my files are in m4a format and need to be in mp3 format instead. Can I use iTunes to convert m4a files to mp3, and if so, how? I wish to retain the songs in my iTunes so I suspect I need to make copies of the original and convert the copies, but I don't know how to do this either.

Click here and follow the instructions.
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I have found that some of my .m4a files that are kept on an external hard drive have somehow (?) become corrupted. Or, alternatively, it may be that iTunes cannot now play them correctly.
When I try and play them in itunes, it just skips the track.
When I play it in Finder, the marker goes through the track, bit I hear nothing.
Does anyone know if there is anything I can do ?
I have restored Mac OSX, bit it didn't do anything.
The only thing I can think of doing is to do a major backup and reinstall completely. ??

Are you playing the files straight from the external hard drive?
Is your external hard drive mac formatted or PC (FAT 32) formatted, should be mac formatted.
As a test, copy one of the files to your local hard drive, does it play correctly in iTunes or quicktime?
Message was edited by: kasa

Can't add m4a files in itunes

When I try to add m4a files in itunes it did not add it. Please help how can I add m4a files in itunes.

Further info: my housemate just drop-boxed (mac to mac) a few of his albums that work fine in his iTunes and the same thing, they'll show in a playlist with their correct details but not in the main library. iTunes is definitely processing after I add them, and they are definitely not corrupt (shown MP3 scan +repair) - I've attached a couple of pictures to clarify.
Please help! I'm a bit OCB about my music being organised correctly I'll admit!

How do i get itunes to display my library (which is on an external hard drive)? It worked OK on old PC, but not new my new laptop. They are M4A files. are

My itunes library used to be on a PC - but shortly before the PC went to PC heaven I transferred the library onto an external hard drive. It worked fine. Now I have a laptop - but I can't get itunes to pick up the library location. I have changed in advance preferences, but the library does not display. I have tried holding down shift when starting itunes - but when I do that it looks for *.itl files, and all my files are M4A files. What do I do next?

chevalierdurufle wrote:
My itunes library used to be on a PC - but shortly before the PC went to PC heaven I transferred the library onto an external hard drive
You mean you transferred the media, not the library...
Now I have a laptop - but I can't get itunes to pick up the library location
The library location is in your /Music/ oflder.
Your media files (not yet in your new iTunes library ) is on the external drive.
I have changed in advance preferences, but the library does not display.
Because you have not yet added anything to your library.
Quit iTunes.
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Itunes is copying/converting 500gb of music from .wma to .m4a files that are on an external drive onto my laptop which doesnt have enough room. how do i reroute these newly converted files somewhere with enough space for them?

itunes is copying/converting 500gb of music from .wma to .m4a files that are on an external drive onto my laptop which doesnt have enough room. how do i reroute these newly converted files somewhere with enough space for them?
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As far as I know, if you simply have the Library (database) file and all your original music files, iTunes on that computer should operate as it did on your old computer. I believe that the Album Artwork, Genius Data, and XML files can be regenerated from the Library file. Not sure about the Extras file.

ITunes failing to recognize location of m4a files?

My iTunes currently has an exclamation mark next to all the songs in m4a format in my library, even though these files have not moved at all and it has dealt with those files for years. Is there some way to get iTunes to recognize all those files where they are? About half my library is in mp3 format and iTunes is having no issue at all with those files. I am using iTunes to organize my music folder, but this problem with m4a files persists.
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I could still really use help with this problem. I should add that my music files are stored on an external hard drive. This alone is clearly not the source of the problem, as iTunes has no problem playing and managing the mp3s even as it has put an exclamation mark next to all the songs stored in the m4a format.
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Alternatively, upgrading to iTunes 8 may have caused this -- I'm not sure. Either way, I could really use a solution to this.
Thanks!

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OMG...I'm glad to know I'm not the only one. Since my computer is a goner, I don't have any other way to access all that music.

ITunes corrupting my m4a files

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