Trevin Chow

Microsoft Group Program Manager and Seattle Photographer

Fix for MP3 songs not playing in iTunes

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The problem

About a month ago, while at work listening to music on my iPhone 3G, I noticed that certain songs weren’t playing.  The iPhone would pause for a brief moment at the start of the song and then skip to the next one.  It happens so quickly that if you weren’t looking at the screen you wouldn’t notice it.

At first, I thought it was an issue specific to the iPhone.  However, when I tried to play those same songs on iTunes 7.x, they would also refuse to play.   Since I am almost always playing music on “shuffle” (random) mode, it’s easy to see why I didn’t notice this earlier.  In fact, I had no idea how long this was occurring.

The odd thing was that these same songs would play in other media players like Windows Media Player, Winamp and Foobar2000.  It was just iTunes, and consequently the iPhone, that was giving me problems.

After researching the problem by scouring the web, I found that this was in fact a common problem hitting a lot of users.  I read a ton of suggestions, some dating back quite a few years.  Here are some of the suggestions that I found and tried in desperation:

  • Deleted the ID3v2 tag and rebuilt it
  • Disabled “Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device” from the advanced properties of my sound card
  • Re-installed DirectX
  • Removed song from iTunes Library and Re-added it
  • Completely uninstall iTunes and re-install it

None of these worked and I was making no progress.   I even tried upgrading to iTunes 8 hoping that it would be one of the hidden bug fixes.  Unfortunately, the new version of iTunes didn’t help.

Finding a solution

After quite a few more days of troubleshooting and experimenting, I finally stumbled upon the solution.  It turns out that the MP3s that wouldn’t play had out of spec MPEG headers, which I verified and repaired using a freeware tool called MP3 Validator.

(Update (2/5/2009): In the comments, “Chris” found an app that apparently works for Mac users called ID3 Editor.  Warning, I have not tried this app myself, just passing on teh recommendation. If it works for you, drop a comment a let me know.)

(Update (2/28/2009): In the comments, Vince determined that ID3 Editor on the Mac did not fix the problem.  So Mac users, don’t try that app.  Instead, the best method is to find a friend on with a PC!)

(Update (5/29/2009): In the comments, bowlerboy_jmb found out that there is indeed a Mac OS X equivalent for MP3Val called MP3 Scan + Repair which uses the same engine as the MP3Val program mentioned in this post! Mac users rejoice!

I scanned my entire library of music and turned out that about 60% of my music collection suffered from this problem.  Since only a subset of these songs wouldn’t play in iTunes (but would play fine in others), it seems that while iTunes is tolerant of some MPEG header errors it is not as forgiving as all other media players I tried.  Since I”m positive these songs played on older version of iTunes 7, something must have changed under the covers along the way in later iTunes update.

After scanning and repairing all the afflicted songs in my library, all my music happily plays in iTunes (and my iPhone).

Step-by-step guide on how to fix your music

Here’s a quick guide on how to fix this problem using free tools in case you’re suffering from the same problem.  I’ll show you how to fix one song, then you can use the same technique on your entire library if you need to.

  1. Download MP3 Tag Validator and extract it to a folder on your PC.  It doesn’t require any installation.
  2. To start the program, just run mp3val-frontend.exe. You’ll be shown a simple application window:image
  3. (Optional) First thing I did was to enable the option Keep file timestamps since I didn’t want all the timestamps to change from the repair.  Go to File | Preferences and make your configuration look like this:
    image
  4. Find one of the songs that won’t play in iTunes and add it to the MP3 Validator window.  You can either drag-and-drop it into the main program window, or you can go to File | Add File(s).  For me, one of the songs was Stealth by Way Out West. image
  5. We’ll now run a scan of the file first, to see if you are suffering from an MPEG header problem.  Click Actions | Scan all. The app is quite fast and you’ll get a modal confirmation dialog almost right away.  Dismiss it with OK.
  6. In order to see the results of the scan, you have to select the song in the main window, and then you’ll see status messages from the scan in the status area.imageHere is a copy and paste of the output, from which I’ve bolded the specific MPEG errors that are present in the file:

    Analyzing file “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″…
    WARNING: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″ (offset 0xa301a3): Garbage at the end of the file
    WARNING: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″: Wrong number of MPEG frames specified in Xing header (13122 instead of 13056)
    WARNING: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″: Wrong number of MPEG data bytes specified in Xing header (10711873 instead of 10658221)
    INFO: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″: 13056 MPEG frames (MPEG 1 Layer III), +ID3v1+ID3v2, Xing header
    Done!

  7. Now that we’ve verified there are indeed MPEG header errors, let’s fix them.  Click Actions | Repair all files.  Similar to the scan we did in step 6, you’ll see a modal confirmation dialog informing you the repair was completed.  After dismissing the dialog, select the song and you’lll see a more detailed confirmation of the repair in the status area:

    Analyzing file “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″…
    WARNING: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″ (offset 0xa301a3): Garbage at the end of the file
    WARNING: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″: Wrong number of MPEG frames specified in Xing header (13122 instead of 13056)
    WARNING: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″: Wrong number of MPEG data bytes specified in Xing header (10711873 instead of 10658221)
    INFO: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″: 13056 MPEG frames (MPEG 1 Layer III), +ID3v1+ID3v2, Xing header
    Rebuilding file “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″…
    FIXED: “D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Way Out West\Intensify\06 Stealth.mp3″: File was rebuilt
    Done!

  8. You should now be able verify that the song now plays in iTunes.  Since MP3 Tag Validator doesn’t rename the file, you won’t even have to re-import the song into your iTunes library.

In the default configuration, MP3 Tag Validator keeps a backup of the original song in the same directory with the added file extension .bak. If your library was as big as mine and spread over countless sub-directories, you’ll want to clean this up to reclaim the disk space.  In Vista (or Windows 7), this was really easy using the file search in Windows Explorer.  All you have to do is run a search in the root of your music folder for “ext:*.bak” (without the quotes) and you’ll get search results for all the backup files that were made. Just select them all and delete them and you’ll reclaim all the disk space.

image

Alternatively, you can configure MP3 Tag Validator to delete the backup files when it successfully finishes repairing the files, but I opted against this as I wanted to be absolutely certain the repaired files were OK before deleting the originals.

I really hopes this helps and saves time for at least one other person out there.  I probably wasted a total of 12 hours over the course of week trying to figure this out.

Related Posts

  1. Deleting song in iTunes Library from within a Playlist
  2. Getting MP3 songs to play at the same volume in iTunes and beyond
  3. Sync ratings between iTunes and Windows Media Player
  4. Create free iPhone ringtones from an MP3
  5. iTunes 8 skips forward multiple songs instead one

Written by Trevin

September 17th, 2008 at 11:10 pm

Posted in Technology

Tagged with , , , , ,

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  1. Dude, excellent detective work! I only just today ran across a folder of files that wouldn’t play in iTunes but worked great in Audion (yeah, I’m crossing platforms here). I ran them through MP3Val (I got “MPEG stream error, resynchronized successfully” after the scan, but had to run the repair as well) and they all work perfectly now. The one thing that bummed me was that all the tag info vanished in the rebuilt files. I figure this may be the result of having older-version MP3 tags in the files, but can’t be certain. And it was only a single album that was messed up, so it’s easy to fix. Anyway, extremely glad to have these files working again. You (no pun intended) ROCK! gh

    golgo hakase

    20 Sep 08 at 1:00 am

  2. golgo: In order to avoid losing ID3 tag info, what you might want to try next time is to use iTunes to “convert” the song tags to ID3 v2.3 first, then follow my step-by-step. If the tags are just ID3v1, I think MP3 Validator will blow them away.

    Trevin

    20 Sep 08 at 11:03 am

  3. Trev, that would work only IF iTunes recognizes the files in the first place. My prob was I couldn’t even get these into iTunes at all. I tried drag-n-drop, Import, and everything else, but it just wouldn’t recognize that these were MP3 files. So now I’m wondering if there’s a nifty little util somewhere that does tag upgrades on batch files (Mac or PC would be OK). I’ve been burning my CD collction for a few years now and I’m guessing that a lot may have 3V1 or even earlier (!) tags attached. Any lines on a tag-conversion util that might help out here? Of course, it’d be even better if Alexey could add this to his handy little utility, but I’m sure he’s got enough to keep him busy as it is. :) Thanks for help again! gh

    golgo hakase

    20 Sep 08 at 2:19 pm

  4. Golgo: One thing you could try is just to play the song in one of the “modern” media players like Windows Media Player or Winamp or Foobar2000. If you edit the tag in those players, I think that it automatically writes out an ID3v2 tag behind the scenes. Since ID3v2 spec has been around for 5+ years, it makes sense that all these apps assume writing a v2 tag out is safe.

    Trevin

    20 Sep 08 at 3:31 pm

  5. Fixed my problem (also after deleting my library the “bad” mp3s wouldn’t be recognized by Itunes), thank you for finally finding out what is wrong with Itunes and finding a fix.

    Konrad

    21 Sep 08 at 7:33 pm

  6. dude, nice job! thanks for this post, it helped me after the wmp corrupted some mp3 files of mine .. i should change my os :S

    swiss

    27 Sep 08 at 8:46 am

  7. OMG thank you so much! I was freaking out. Out of nowhere I couldn’t play certain songs and I could not figure it out or find any sites that could help me. You saved me man!

    Murilo

    15 Oct 08 at 10:08 pm

  8. Thanks so much!! It was driving me crazy and i thought I would never hear these songs again….

    Emily

    18 Oct 08 at 5:34 am

  9. This was exactly what I was looking for – it amazed me that I had something like 7000 files with issues, which lead to almost 1000 of those not being recognized by iTunes. Thanks for posting this information.

    thiazi

    18 Oct 08 at 5:36 pm

  10. Thanks for doing all that leg work. I’ve been trying to import the remaining 30% of my mp3 library into iTunes for weeks. I tried the whole gamut, but didn’t find this program, didn’t conceive of the problem (corrupt data in such a large portion of the library’s tags?). Well, it’s working for me! Thanks so much.

    Frankenpunk

    18 Oct 08 at 8:33 pm

  11. Thanks so much…. 160go library, so many bad files !
    Do you know how to prevent it from happenning again ?

    Pierre

    20 Oct 08 at 3:57 pm

  12. thank you so so so very much friend!

    navid

    24 Oct 08 at 8:54 pm

  13. Fantastic. Exactly what i needed. Thanks for taking the time to make this blog. So many threads out there on this topic with no solutions, and all they need is a link to this site.

    Owen

    26 Oct 08 at 12:17 am

  14. Thanks bro. I appreciate the time you put into this. I was tearing my hair out and cursing Apple for the last few days, trying to fix the problem.

    Excellent work.

    -j.

    Jesse

    27 Oct 08 at 7:53 am

  15. Ahh, Finally someone with more competance than Apple.
    Many thanks for your help.

    Mick n Eire

    29 Oct 08 at 8:46 am

  16. 90% of my 30000 songs still won’t repair, say unknown file format though they end in .mp3

    KA

    29 Oct 08 at 9:46 am

  17. My problem with few songs is that they’ve got different time in itunes than in winamp for example.
    I tried mp3 validator, it found the problem, fixed the problem but there is a still problem.

    When I rescan them again, it again says there is an error. Any suggestions?

    ewing

    8 Nov 08 at 5:35 pm

  18. This is fantastic !!
    The last few months I spend really a lot of time getting my massive music library 100% organised: correct artists, album names, correct artwork…
    You can imagine the horror when I suddenly discovered that entire albums didn’t play anymore in iTunes. Reimporting them from the original CD seemed the only cure. I really searched the internet for a solution, but could not find anything untill I stumbled upon your page.
    One remark: the MP3 Validator converts the ID3 tag back to v1, and as such deletes the Album artwork.
    Nevertheless, thanks a lot for this!
    B.

    brgm

    14 Nov 08 at 2:12 am

  19. Excellent!!! Thanks!! It helped me a lot!!!

    Pete

    20 Nov 08 at 12:19 pm

  20. THANK YOU DUDE! It literally took me months to find a solution and you were the savior. No forums, no apple support helped, but your blog helped. Thanks.

    Tom

    24 Nov 08 at 11:27 pm

  21. First class work. Worked a dream. Just wanted to add some keywords for others searching for same issues.
    Unprotected MP3s playing in Windows Media but not in iTunes

    Mark

    25 Nov 08 at 4:30 pm

  22. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I’ve spent three days pulling my hair out trying to figure out why iTunes would not recognize some files.

    I love you.

    1234

    2 Dec 08 at 10:46 pm

  23. Dude, Thanks a lot for this. Excellent work. I have been beating my head across internet only to come across useless solutions.

    This is the ultimate solution. I download a lot of music and was frustrated to find out that of it is not playing in my iPod.

    Thanks again.

    Anshu Kapoor

    3 Dec 08 at 11:22 am

  24. Is there something like this that is Mac compatible? I just bought music from iTunes and it won’t play, well it played yesterday, and it plays on my iPod, just not on my computer anymore. I have OSX and the latest version of iTunes installed.

    greatwhitenorth

    7 Dec 08 at 3:08 pm

  25. awesome! So helpful and well explained.

    sandra

    10 Dec 08 at 12:30 pm

  26. That problem was driving me crazy, and that was the only solution that worked. Thank you so so much! :D

    Gabriela

    12 Dec 08 at 12:27 pm

  27. YOU ROCK DUDE!!!! THANX…

    tauseef

    13 Dec 08 at 7:02 am

  28. Thank you so much. I have been going bonkers with this problem. Trying to fix tags manually with no luck, burning and reimporting, pulling my hair out. You are my hero!!!

    Shelly

    16 Dec 08 at 11:17 pm

  29. Thanks alot, didnt know what i was gonn do! Fixed my problem in mere minutes

    Grateful

    17 Dec 08 at 4:28 pm

  30. I’m having the same issues as post #16. Hundreds of songs that suddenly don’t play anymore. I get the – “Unknown File Format”. I get this with the program suggested. My files don’t play in itunes or Winamp.

    I’m at a total loss.

    Daphne

    25 Dec 08 at 5:28 pm

  31. That’s great but unfortunately it wont work for me because I’m running a Mac. I’ve searched the net for a Mac equivalent of this program but couldn’t find anything. Does anyone know of a solution for a Mac user having the same problem?

    Wilhelm

    28 Dec 08 at 8:15 am

  32. THANK YOU. This needs to be posted on Digg or something. It was driving me CRAZY.

    Ramsey

    31 Dec 08 at 9:40 am

  33. Awesome! You finally fixed this nagging problem for me. Cheers.

    Hubert

    4 Jan 09 at 12:04 am

  34. Wow,
    Worked perfectly on the MP3s I’ve tried so far

    George

    5 Jan 09 at 10:00 pm

  35. Still, nobody has a solution for Mac users?

    Wilhelm

    6 Jan 09 at 1:16 am

  36. WOW!!! Trev!!Words can not say how grateful I am for this!!! Thanks a lot! Wanted to give up til I came across this! Thanks again!!

    Pierre

    8 Jan 09 at 5:59 am

  37. I just submitted this to Digg, so feel free to digg it if you found this useful:

    http://digg.com/apple/Fix_for_MP3s_not_playing_in_iTunes

    Trevin

    8 Jan 09 at 10:38 am

  38. First – huge thanks for solving a really irritating problem.

    I’ve noted an increase in these faulty files and I wonder if anyone has any leads as to what is causing them? I’ve used EAC and LAME for years but it’s really only in the last ½-year that the errors have become common. Is the problem the rip or the life-cycle afterwards?? (My post-rip factors include fingerprinting with Music IP, often adding cover art manaully and volume levelling with iVolume.)

    Mark

    12 Jan 09 at 11:35 pm

  39. Trevin Chow is GOD. Bow down before his computer problem solving skills.

    Joe Vigz

    14 Jan 09 at 2:31 pm

  40. Thanks from Spain!!! I have done it with a couple of songs and it works!!! In this moment I’am validating all my library, i am sure it will work fine.

    And the reason of all this…don’t know, i am using both wmp 11 and iTunes. I used the refresh option of WMP, it searchs for incomplete information in your tags automaticly, and maybe that collapsed all my mp3.

    Anyway, thank u so much!!!

    Diego

    19 Jan 09 at 11:31 am

  41. Dude your amazing!

    Ben

    19 Jan 09 at 12:45 pm

  42. Thanks for this. I knew something was wrong with the headers, and that foobar was supposedly able to fix it (info from another site), but that didn’t work. This prog worked perfectly. Just selected my whole folder, scanned, then fixed all. THANKS!!!

    Anon

    22 Jan 09 at 5:58 pm

  43. I have been analysing the mp3 that didn’t work before, and in my case, i noticed that most of them were working with id3 v1, but i included also lyrics and artwork, that is a feature of id v2?(not sure at all).
    Anyway, i am converting all my mp3 tag to idv2.3 using the options in iTunes: right click in files/convert id3…

    Also, the tags of all the corrupted mp3 returned to the original tag, i must re-write everything. Anybody knows a way to back-up the tags? I tried to rewrite them by importing a previous library and it doesn’t work.

    A complete mistery

    Diego

    23 Jan 09 at 5:02 am

  44. Like the rest of the frustrated Mac users, I couldn’t find a program to work on the tags of the music that wouldn’t get into iTunes – but I’m happy to say, I DID find a Mac program that can clear tags and I’ve FINALLY successfully brought those tracks into iTunes! It’s called “ID3 Editor” and it’s available at http://www.pa-software.com/accessories/overview.php?prod=BC3B2E3A – I have no connection with this company other than a happy evaluator and will probably plunk down the $15 just to finally have a solution.

    CRZ

    5 Feb 09 at 9:39 pm

  45. Thanks Chris. I updated the blog posting providing a call out to the software you found. If anyone else can verify that it works, let us know.

    Trevin

    5 Feb 09 at 10:31 pm

  46. Fantastic discovery… This issue has been bothering me all morning. You are a savior!

    Evan

    12 Feb 09 at 12:15 pm

  47. Just wanted to throw in my thanks as well. My favorite songs suddenly stopped playing, and this fixed it!

    Interestingly, a lot of the music with the bad MP3 tags were purchased off Amazon. Wonder what that’s all about.

    Eyal

    13 Feb 09 at 10:44 pm

  48. THANKS so much for this! I probably miss a bunch of songs just because of this issue, and now it will be fixed! Big time help, awesome find!

    JT

    16 Feb 09 at 2:29 pm

  49. Thank you VERY much, I wish all annoying quirks on my computer could be fixed this easily!!

    Colin

    18 Feb 09 at 5:12 pm

  50. Bro as so many have mentioned was going crazy trying to find a fix, so thanks so much!

    DoCtAj

    20 Feb 09 at 2:31 am

  51. The comment on this web page states “Update (2/5/2009): In the comments, “Chris” found an app that apparently works for Mac users called ID3 Editor. Warning, I have not tried this app myself, just passing on teh recommendation. If it works for you, drop a comment a let me know.)”

    Sorry but that software does nothing to fix problems. iTunes, on my new iMac, refused to load/play/recognize four mp3 tracks I downloaded from masterbeat.com. Those same four tracks can be burned to an mp3 disk and they play well in my car’s CD player. So, I wasted the $15.00 for that ID3 Editor.

    Thanks, Vince.

    Vince Black

    27 Feb 09 at 5:44 pm

  52. Ok, worked more on this problem of mp3 files not playing on iTunes on my new iMac. Found a workaround!

    1. I attached a WIN XP laptop to my home network and transferred those 4 corrupted mp3 files to the laptop from the iMac. Incidentally, those 4 files would NOT play on the iTunes on the laptop, either. So I knew there was a problem with them.
    2. Downloaded the MP3 Validator to the laptop. Validator found problems with all 4 files and fixed them.
    3. Transferred those 4 files back to the iMac.
    4. Fixed !!! All 4 files imported beautifully into iTunes and played! Yahoo! Very happy camper here!

    This is a bit of chore, but given that MP3 Validator has no Mac version and that there are no other choices out there, this work around fills the bill.

    Vince Black

    28 Feb 09 at 5:50 am

  53. Thanks for the info Vince. I’ve updated the post to reflect that IDE Editor on Mac didn’t work.

    Trevin

    28 Feb 09 at 12:56 pm

  54. Thanks for this – it worked a treat. Was driving me nuts not being able to listen to the songs I wanted and as it was happening with quite a few, I didn’t fancy re-ripping my entire cd collection!

    da ruth

    28 Feb 09 at 4:03 pm

  55. Simply Fantastic… You Cured One of my Biggest Headaches :) Cheers man…..

    Panduka

    2 Mar 09 at 11:42 am

  56. Da ruth and Panduka, thanks for the kind words! Now, all we need to do is convince the maker(s) of MP3 Validator to apply their considerable skills in code to make a MAC version!

    Vince.

    Vince Black

    2 Mar 09 at 4:10 pm

  57. I think it is important to note how the IDE tags got screwed up in the first place. MusicBrainz did it for me. I put my entire 80 gig library through that disaster and a lot of my tags didn’t make it. I’m glad there is a fix.

    Interestingly, only mac (iTunes, iPod, VLC player) based mp3 players had trouble with the messed up tags. Windows and my Zune read them just fine.

    Joel

    4 Mar 09 at 5:23 pm

  58. God!! What a relief! I had tried everything I could think of. Thank you so much. Blue

    Blue Ganapathy

    6 Mar 09 at 10:51 am

  59. Man..awsome troubleshooting….thanks, wasted so much time figuring out why the damn thing was not working…..

    Nick

    12 Mar 09 at 7:32 pm

  60. Vince, I don’t know if you’ll ever come back to this post (it took me a month :) ) but I’m sorry that IDE Editor didn’t work for you. It worked for me, but my tracks didn’t come from masterbeat.com either (they came from, ah, somewhere else). What I would suggest to the Mac users who don’t have ready access to a PC is to evaluate the software – they let you try it for free for 30 days or 20 runs – so it doesn’t cost you anything to run it once – see if it works for you like it did for me, or if it doesn’t like it didn’t for Vince.

    By the way, I’m right with you in wishing that we just had a Mac version of MP3 Validator.

    I guess yet another solution (albeit a convoluted one) is to put a Virtual PC on your Mac so you CAN run MP3 Validator there. Ahhh, the joys of Mac ownership! ;-)

    CRZ

    16 Mar 09 at 7:14 pm

  61. CRZ – I’ve considered running virtual Windows, i.e. bootcamp, but I don’t have Vista, so I’d have to buy new Vista software and I can’t justify the cost just to have Windows compatibility, once in awhile.

    I did use ID3 Ed, but that software didn’t find nor report any problem with those tracks while Validator did.

    Thanks for the feedback! :-)

    Vince.

    Vince Black

    17 Mar 09 at 12:39 am

  62. Finally, a solution that works! Thanks for doing the foot work : )

    Amputechture

    17 Mar 09 at 7:27 am

  63. Hey,
    This solution looks great but when i tried it i had some problems.
    First it would not let me drag and drop so i did the add file command.

    Second thing was when i scanned it i don’t think it had any errors and when i “fixed” the file it still doesn’t play in itunes.

    Any help????

    Micah

    18 Mar 09 at 10:11 am

  64. INFINITE GRATITUDE

    Al

    23 Mar 09 at 5:14 pm

  65. THANKS!!!, I discovered problems after retagging some files with MusicBrainz Picard. Now, problem solved.

    Psy_b

    28 Mar 09 at 4:24 pm

  66. YOUR THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    thank you very much!!

    paat

    29 Mar 09 at 3:12 am

  67. woot. thanks man, now got those mp3 to work with itunes perfectly

    Xeric

    1 Apr 09 at 6:38 am

  68. Amazing! Great work, man!

    Worked like a charm for me. For some reason my 4 favorite songs on the album were the ones that needed repair. So I was freaking out before this.

    Thanks :D

    John

    2 Apr 09 at 12:52 am

  69. Hi, just to drop by and warn about this program to fix ID3 MP3 tags for mac users =)
    It is still in beta, but I just had this error pop up for me, i and really didn’t wanna use a windows app just because of it, and it worked ;)

    http://blog.zuckschwerdt.org/mac/mp3-validator-mac-os-x

    cheers!

    jinx

    2 Apr 09 at 2:03 am

  70. Dude, You are awesome.

    Brilliant work finding the cause of the problem and crystal clear instructions on how to solve it.

    I am in your debt.

    Switch

    3 Apr 09 at 7:22 pm

  71. I tried it, but no go…i received 2 results

    The affected songs either had a result where
    1) Scan was OK, or
    2) Error: Unknown file format

    the first I got for my mp3 format songs
    the second I got for an mp4 format song purchased on iTunes

    starter

    10 Apr 09 at 2:01 pm

  72. I have been searching for an answer to this problem for weeks. Today I tried a different set of search parameters, and your blog post was the first hit.
    Brilliant! Thanks for providing an answer to this most annoying problem!

    BloneFuse

    16 Apr 09 at 5:47 pm

  73. Nothing else worked, but this sure did. Thanks!

    Gmayne

    16 Apr 09 at 7:13 pm

  74. I just lost all of my album artwork. Months and months of work gone in a minute. Please add a warning to the article that the program will wipe all your artwork away. All of it has gone.

    BBBen

    20 Apr 09 at 11:03 am

  75. Thanks so much for investigating and sharing! and to whomever created this awesome 64kb program!

    Mooby

    20 Apr 09 at 5:14 pm

  76. BBBen: I have artwork for all my music and haven’t lost any album art after running MP3Validator. Are you tagging album art as part of the ID3 standard? If not, you’d lose it because MP3Validator makes sure everything is according to spec.

    Trevin

    27 Apr 09 at 5:56 pm

  77. First of all, my mp3s that don’t play on iTunes do play on my iPod (nano). Weird. Still it has been bugging me so I tried the Validator.

    I scanned, it said problem, I fixed, it said rebuilt, songs still don’t play.

    My previous laptop crashed in November and afterwards I lost days getting what remained of my properly tagged music back from my iPod with similar workarounds. Now this. Could anyone tell me why I still bother with iTunes?

    Mrs Tremond

    28 Apr 09 at 7:36 am

  78. This made me so very happy to find! I mean, yeah, the iTunes store is great, but it made me feel like “If you don’t buy it here, you can’t use it with all the other music you like so much…” *Insert raspberry sound* I dunno, I always saw Apple as being a bit more progressive. I’d be great if they added this as a supplemental utility on their plugins page. Kudos guys!

    J Armke

    2 May 09 at 11:21 am

  79. You rule! Thank you so much! Agh, if only I had known this before. I’ve accidentally deleted 3 really great tracks and had to redownload another 10 before… TDGC, Man.

    Eric L.

    6 May 09 at 3:24 pm

  80. Oh,my God!
    You are absolutely fantastic!!! thanks a LOT! I’ve spent 2 days trying to figure out what is f.. wrong!!! )))) Now I can sleep in peace))

    kris

    9 May 09 at 3:28 pm

  81. THIS IS FREAKING THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER! You’ve saved me soo much time friend. I recently did a factory restore on my C drive and when i imported my music over nine hundred of my mp3s would not load into itunes and this fixed it! THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!

    Rod

    11 May 09 at 3:14 pm

  82. Thanks so much!

    Rod

    11 May 09 at 3:15 pm

  83. Dude! you rule and deserve mad props…

    Jeff

    13 May 09 at 12:36 pm

  84. thanks so much! fixed my problem! Amazing that a 135KB program fixed the problem :P

    2Perfect

    13 May 09 at 5:52 pm

  85. Thanks for the advice! MP3 Validator did the trick!

    Thanks

    14 May 09 at 2:35 pm

  86. thank you so very much. you have literally saved me here, a load of radiohead albums wouldn’t play and i’ve got to learn these songs for tomorrow, and with your little trick, i have been able to. Cheers!!!

    Rich

    20 May 09 at 11:42 am

  87. thank you!!! my songs played just fine in iTunes, Windows Media Player, and on my iPods for ages, then suddenly stopped working in iTunes. accidentally deleted them from my iTunes library (forgot i just had to convert the ID3 tags) and didn’t know how to get them back in. this worked perfectly!
    thank you very much.

    elise

    21 May 09 at 1:40 am

  88. Okay, here’s something you might want to add to your article. As you see from the above comment, I was one of the people for whom this didn’t work. I mended the files and still they wouldn’t play.

    As I’ve just figured out, the reason for this was the following. As one of the default settings iTunes will copy every song you open to a different library. How this makes any sense I fail to understand, but that’s only an obvious sign of my complete computer illiteracy. I have been using iTunes for about 5 years and I’ve had no clue about this, I literally have just discovered that Apple for whatever reason thought it would be a good idea if I had my entire music library on my computer TWICE.

    Obviously when I first read this article a month ago I mended the original files, but iTunes was still attempting to play the copies it made without me being unaware of their existence, let alone where those copies were.

    For anyone for whom this mending thing hasn’t worked, I recommend checking the “Advanced” tab in the iTunes settings. There you see where your iTunes music folder is located and you can also uncheck the box next to “Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library”, the point of which I honestly fail to see.

    Then you need to either mend the file in this iTunes library (not the original one you downloaded) or mend the original and delete the copy, then attempt playing it from iTunes, which will say it can’t find the file at which point you have to redirect it to where you originally put your music.

    Mrs Tremond

    21 May 09 at 4:42 pm

  89. Hi there.
    I have, just like many other users, invested a lot of time in tagging their MP3′s.
    I gave up on using itunes a few years ago for tagging my mp3′s as i didn’t like the way that other media players (pc or other devices) wouldn’t be able to play or have the correct id3 tags or artwork.
    I used a combination of music brainz picard (as i like last.fm) for correcting tags and mp3tag for embedding artwork and removing genre and comments.
    I still though prefer using itunes as my media player! I also have an ipod too.

    Recently many of my mp3′s (that have been working fine for the last few years and haven’t been changed in any way!) have not been playing in itunes!
    Although fixing the MPEG header works to fix these files to play in itunes, I am loathed to have to go back through and fix my whole mp3 collection adding tags and artwork again.

    Is there any reason why itunes is now doing this? I can’t seem to find an answer from apple or anywhere else.

    Don

    27 May 09 at 8:12 am

  90. Brilliant… worked a treat. But what a pain! Thanks man. :-)

    Cosimedia

    28 May 09 at 2:35 pm

  91. MP3 Scan+Repair – an ID3 tag evaluator for the Mac.

    Posted (at Apple Discussions): May 29, 2009 9:39 AM

    Yesterday, I encountered an mp3 file that refused to be added to the iTunes library, and I couldn’t figure out why. Thanks to insights provided by contributors to the Apple Discussions, I learned that I was not alone in encountering this problem. Apparently, iTunes 8.x is a lot fussier than its predecessors ever were regarding the reading of ID3 tags, to the extent that iTunes 8.x will not even bother to report back that an mp3 file already in my library may not play, or that mp3 files with garbage in their tags may not even be imported.

    Of course, such mysteriously bad behavior in such a great product sent me on a day-long mission to learn more about ID3 tags, tag editors, and mp3 tag evaluators to find the fix. I reviewed what I think are all of the related comments in the Apple Discussion groups, and I did some extensive Google searching.

    By the end of the day, I learned that, in response to requests for help on the subject of mp3 files not playing, or not getting imported in iTunes, respondents here in Apple Discussions were universally referring people to a September 2008 web site article by Trevin Chow ( http://trevinchow.com/blog/tag/mp3-tag-validator/ ) which explains the nature of the problem. Following Chow’s lead, they then recommend using a free, Windows-based, Open Source product called MP3 Validator (commonly known as MP3val) to check out—and fix—their mp3 files.

    When Mac users ask if there is an equivalent mp3 evaluator on the Mac, the thread either ends, or they are told “No.”

    Based on my research yesterday, that answer appears to be misleading and wrong!

    I am a little mystified as to why no one with much more expertise than I have in this area has yet reported on this, but, for several months already, there really IS a Mac equivalent of MP3val available for those of us who want to get the same functionality of MP3val without loading Windows! Instead of following the advice of Mr. Chow, a Microsoft Senior Program Manager, and finding a “friend with a PC” to fix our mp3 file problems, Mac users really do have their version of MP3val to play around with.

    It is called MP3 Scan+Repair, and, like MP3val, this Macintosh equivalent of MP3val is free, Open Source software that you can use to evaluate and repair your mp3 files. According to documentation provided by its author, Christian W. Zuckschwerdt, “the MP3 Scan+Repair Cocoa Interface uses the fast and reliable mp3val as engine,” so, essentially, he has done us all a great service by putting a Mac OS X interface on top of the exact same software engine that drives the Windows MP3 Validator software that everyone here has been recommending.

    As he adds in his introductory notes (which, in concordance with GNU public licensing terms applicable to Open Source, or Free Software, are essentially lifted—with permission—verbatim from the MP3val site itself), Zuckschwerdt says:

    “MP3 Scan+Repair for Mac OS X is a small, high-speed tool for MPEG audio file validation and (optionally) fixing problems. It was primarily designed for verification of MPEG 1 Layer III (MP3) files, but supports also other MPEG versions and layers. It can be useful for finding corrupted files (e.g. incomplete downloads).

    “MP3 Scan+Repair (with the mp3val core) supports:
    • MPEG-1, 2, 2.5; Layers I, II, III
    • ID3v1 tags (must be at the very end of the file)
    • ID3v2 tags (must be at the very beginning of the file)
    • APEv2 tags

    “This program is for Mac OS X only. See the mp3val project ( http://mp3val.sourceforge.net/ ) for Windows and Unix version.

    “This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

    “The latest version of MP3 Scan+Repair (including sources) can be downloaded from the official web site.” ( http://triq.net/mac/mp3-validator-mac-os-x )

    The main reason that I wrote so much about this issue is that I think Mac users ought to be able to find solutions here and that we should share those solutions when we discover what they are, rather than recycle outdated or incorrect information, as is occurring in regards this particular topic. I hope that this extensive report saves other Mac users from having to waste a whole day researching the solution to the problematic mp3 files in iTunes. Instead, we can now spend that time using an elegantly designed Mac product to evaluate our mp3 files! Enjoy.

    bowlerboy_jmb

    bowlerboy_jmb

    29 May 09 at 5:51 am

  92. bowlerboy_jmb: Thanks for the info on a Mac equivalent! I’ve updated the blog post to add this info.

    Trevin

    29 May 09 at 7:33 am

  93. THANKYOU so much!! You have no idea how long I’ve been trying to fix this problem!!

    Aless

    30 May 09 at 11:32 pm

  94. great find dude..!!!!

    was wondering why the song wouldn’t play…it did on earlier verion of itunes.
    really helped me out….thank you.

    jcubav

    1 Jun 09 at 3:42 am

  95. This has been a godsend, but I have to wonder why after all this time no one has worked out why this is happening. What are we doing wrong? Are the any settings in a program like EAC that can avoid this constant workaround? Is LAME at fault?

    I would love not to have to use MP3 Tag Validator on every single MP3 I rip!

    Mark

    1 Jun 09 at 10:18 am

  96. Great piece of work mate!!
    I had this new album that was driving me nuts!!!
    CHEERS!!

    Ox

    7 Jun 09 at 1:41 am

  97. Thanks for the tip. It got a randomly corrupted file to work again. The bad news :( is that along with the “garbage at the beginning of file”, I lost at least a few seconds of my song! I saved a copy of the original, so hopefully I’ll find another way of solving the problem…

    rsh

    9 Jun 09 at 2:25 pm

  98. thanks trevin! this helped :)

    gwen

    13 Jun 09 at 4:13 am

  99. Thanks a lot! This was really helpful.

    Lars Arvestad

    16 Jun 09 at 11:43 am

  100. I already sent an email to you, but wanted to say again how thankful I am to have found this post. The program worked great. Of my nearly 12,000 mp3′s, iTunes had stopped playing a good 10% or more of my songs. I thought I was going to have to deal with the loss and attribute it to unexplainable computer malfunction.

    I’d spent a great deal of time (over 200 hours) trying to get my music library just the way I wanted it, and it was a huge blow to me when I realized my work was going down the drain. Once I ran the program, it found 8600+ songs with messed up headers, and I assume that those would of eventually stopped playing as well. Wow….no idea how they all got messed up, but I’m glad I came across your thread when I did. I was about to delete and start all over with the ones that were screwy.

    One question / observation though: The program doesn’t recognize special characters. For instance, there’s a Marilyn Manson song that has no name…simply a spade symbol. The program will hang on that song, and I’ll have to delete it off the list and restart the scan. Also does the same with Ton Loc, (with the little tic mark over the o). Is there a fix for that?

    Patrick

    21 Jun 09 at 8:07 am

  101. damn i was scared of losing some of my media cuz of that problem… thanks a bunch!

    theindian0

    21 Jun 09 at 10:55 am

  102. Dude… Thank you SO much! I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrated I was getting until I found your guide & now it’s all sorted! You are a legend!

    Helo

    7 Jul 09 at 8:56 am

  103. Thanks a lot. That worked.

    Peter

    15 Jul 09 at 4:46 pm

  104. Thanks, this is a horrible bug in iTunes!!

    Dean

    25 Jul 09 at 2:15 am

  105. You can try converting the ID3 tags in I tunes 8.2 FOR Windows Vista 64 bit.
    It worked for me!

    O.twist

    25 Jul 09 at 7:24 am

  106. Wow, worked great and was free too! Thanks for your hard work!!

    SP

    30 Jul 09 at 11:50 am

  107. wow, i was so close to uninstall itunes, once i noticed that it wouldn’t play half of my music anymore. thanks for this excellent solution, dude.

    kevo

    31 Jul 09 at 2:59 pm

  108. Thanks so much for this post. It solved a problem that’s been plaguing me for over a year. VLC was becoming the only player that would play back some of my mp3′s, and even that started giving up on some of ‘em. Now all the different media players seem happy with my mp3′s again.

    H

    6 Aug 09 at 12:04 pm

  109. Wow, thank you for this. iTunes, as much as I hate saying this, is the only player that will do everything I want. After reading this article, and using MP3 Tag Eval, all of my songs are there now, which is great when you have a library over 30,000 songs.

    Thanks again!

    Brian

    22 Aug 09 at 11:34 pm

  110. I just wanted to say I REALLY appreciated your troubleshoot. Googling this issue was zero help until I found your article. I rarely leave feedback for help pages like this, but your explanation was so concise and detailed, I just had to drop you a message.

    Thanks for bringing my iTunes library back from the dead! :)

    John

    31 Aug 09 at 6:41 am

  111. Thanks for sharing this. Nailed the problem in the head!

    guest

    3 Sep 09 at 8:49 am

  112. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I updated my iPod to be able to play Audible audiobooks, and suddenly a ton of mp3s wouldn’t play (or show up in iTunes). This fixed it 100%! I’m so happy, I may name my next kid after you!

    Timmy Mac

    5 Sep 09 at 9:15 am

  113. Thank you, problem is completely solved!

    debbie

    12 Sep 09 at 1:02 pm

  114. I just bought an ipod and couldn’t get my full library working in iTunes until this fix. THANK YOU for this!

    Keith

    13 Sep 09 at 5:45 am

  115. I am not usually one to leave feedback on these sites, but this was one awesome fix! Thanks, man!

    Alex

    16 Sep 09 at 1:56 am

  116. Hey.. seems like a good suggestion for the problem but unable to download “MP3 Tag Validator” .. link seems to be broken .. any alternative source for the same???

    ajain

    18 Sep 09 at 3:51 am

  117. ajain: Download link works for me on this page: http://www.gromkov.com/faq/repair/mp3_validator.html

    Trevin

    18 Sep 09 at 11:33 am

  118. Great job man! This has totally helped me out. Many many thanks!

    kiki

    18 Sep 09 at 1:55 pm

  119. Very weird that almost everyone has been successful with the program.

    I don’t get it. My songs skip forward just like everyone else, but my tags, according to the validator program, are “OK”.

    More and more of my songs are giving me the problem, and they’re all reading “OK”.

    very frustrating

    starter

    18 Sep 09 at 2:25 pm

  120. Despite there being over a hundred grateful comments above, there was no way I couldn’t thank you for this fantastic advice.

    I was terribly upset to confront this problem, I am beyond thrilled to have found such a simple and effective solution.

    Kudos and thanks.

    An appreciative customer,
    Nicole

    Nicole

    21 Sep 09 at 3:18 pm

  121. Man thank you soo much ! your a Champ

    Engdude

    22 Sep 09 at 5:39 pm

  122. Thank you very much for this simple and effective solution! I was much bothered by mp3′s that iTunes reused to import into the library. Many posts all over the place had no answers except for this one.

    manuzorro99

    6 Oct 09 at 6:21 am

  123. f*ck yeah… thank you so much

    Steve

    13 Oct 09 at 5:09 pm

  124. Wow I just realized I had this problem last night. I’m at work now but when I get home I’m immediately going to try this! I spent about 4 hours yesterday trying to fix this. I was very bummed that I may have had to delete my whole library and start from scratch. I pray that this works!

    Stacie

    19 Oct 09 at 3:56 pm

  125. Hey dude.. Excellent find. Thanks for sharing this!! :)

    RustiX

    22 Oct 09 at 9:41 pm

  126. Can anyone help???

    My songs now work in itunes (thanks!) but after the first 7 or so seconds, the song restarts and then continues normally. That means every song “fixed” is about 7 seconds longer than it should be. What on earth would cause this problem?

    –minor issue–
    Also, the id tags are going back to the originals instead of what I wrote in iTunes. I’m not sure if this is by design. Any help is appreciated.

    Cyrus

    23 Oct 09 at 2:52 am

  127. [...] Thanks to Trevin Chow for this helpful piece of [...]

    blogable.eu » Mac: Create iTunes compatible mp3 files

    5 Nov 09 at 1:36 pm

  128. + 1 – this fixed my problem in 2 seconds. Now for a scan of my entire library to see if there are other songs that I’m not aware of…

    Thanks!

    Dale

    11 Nov 09 at 6:25 am

  129. Thanks!!!!!!!!

    Matt

    11 Nov 09 at 6:51 pm

  130. a) Itunes will add a non-standard Itunes tag to your mp3 files.
    b) mp3 files with album artwork are notoriously not supported by many mp3 players
    c) Itunes will automatically download album artwork unless you disable it in the configuration settings
    d) Album artwork has to be a specific size and image format (PNG) to work and many image editing programs write nonstandard PNG files (optipng will correct them).
    e) Lame mp3 encoder, used in many free open source programs, had an encoding bug around version 3.94 that corrupted the mp3 data.
    f) Files older than 2004 are suspect given the poor quality of the encoder software/tag editors at that time
    g) Podcasts or songs with commercials added to beginning or end of file often have mismatched bitrates/sample rates/etc.
    h) Podcast republishers do not check their output (same comment as automatic commercial adding to the start of a mp3 file)
    i) Captured audio from mp3/mms web streams is notoriously bug ridden given the latency, data repeats, and other issues with not getting the entire data stream
    j) Many tag editors do not support unicode characters (2 byte characters). Avoid unicode tags.

    In short, use a few tools for mp3 encoding, progressing and tagging. Keep backups. Don’t invest way too much time organizing and re-organizing your files/tags – it is not worth it. Get the full album when you can and encode it yourself using a decent tool.

    fred

    23 Nov 09 at 10:11 pm

  131. For AGES I’ve been trying to get to the root of this problem. What’s more insidious is that out of thousands of songs I have, I didn’t know which one wouldn’t play. Thanks for this solution. I dragged my whole folder and after several long minutes, it singled out the troubled songs.

    You are simply the best. Thanks!

    Lonewulf

    27 Nov 09 at 10:59 pm

  132. This was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks to your write-up, I managed to make a stubborn mp3 work on iTunes. Many many thanks for your well written piece!

    Glorior

    28 Nov 09 at 5:36 am

  133. Thanks a heap, you saved me. I encountered this before and had to fiddle around re-exporting … this does the job properly and far more easily. Great work!

    Dhanish

    28 Nov 09 at 4:30 pm

  134. thank you very much… I’ve wondered for entire days on how to solve this problem!!!
    you got it! ;)

    yassa

    29 Nov 09 at 10:29 am

  135. Great, i had exactly the same problem and worked.
    Thanks for your concern with others.

    JR

    30 Nov 09 at 6:12 pm

  136. This worked on a couple of problem files, so I processed 120 GB of MP3. Then I discovered that this utility truncated so many of my “good” songs to the point that I can’t even use them. Be very careful. Use selectively, not across the board.

    Race_Coach

    1 Dec 09 at 5:54 pm

  137. Race_Coach: Hopefully you used the programs backup feature so you didn’t lose any of the music!

    Trevin

    1 Dec 09 at 5:55 pm

  138. Thank you so much! I finally got 1 of my songs to play again :D

    Jennifer

    6 Dec 09 at 7:37 pm

  139. I have the same problem too.
    But I get it work with the foobar2000.
    1) Add the folder to foobar200
    2) Select all
    3) Right click – Tagging – MP3 tag types
    4) Unchecked the APEv2
    5) Update files.

    Then re-load into itune

    John chen

    9 Dec 09 at 8:26 pm

  140. Brilliant! I encountered this problem with a few MP3s the other day and this fixed them right up. Thanks for posting and making the step-by-step walkthrough easy to comprehend. Nice one! :)

    CG

    12 Dec 09 at 2:20 pm

  141. Great work man! This had been bugging me for weeks.

    janitor80

    12 Dec 09 at 3:30 pm

  142. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

    I really appreciate this, it fixed them right up. (:

    Lynna

    13 Dec 09 at 9:47 am

  143. Some of my tunes are skipping at 12 seconds. Seems to be related to upgrade to vs 9 itunes. Tried the MP3 validator .. but the file extensions in my itunes are .m4a and it doesn’t recognise the file format. Help !!

    AAM

    22 Dec 09 at 11:24 am

  144. It worked, only challenge I found was that now the song skips a bit where the header was fixed. Appreciate all your help.

    Nathan

    22 Dec 09 at 1:01 pm

  145. OMG! It worked. Thank you so much :o )
    I knew absolutely nothing about ID tags so I just followed your step-by-step guide blindly and hoped for the best. Within seconds I was able to play an album which i-Tunes had previously refused to recognise. I am so grateful to you.
    Thank goodness my search engine directed me to your page. The way in which you have helped so many people who have experienced the same problem is outstanding. If only Apple were as kind and caring to their consumers as you are. Thanks again. David. (United Kingdom).

    David

    30 Dec 09 at 6:57 pm

  146. THANK YOU. You have made my day. Thank you.

    Jessie

    6 Jan 10 at 12:50 pm

  147. brilliant advice – this has driven me nuts. many thanks for taking time out to help us.

    Steve Flood

    7 Jan 10 at 9:37 am

  148. man i am experiencing this problem , i ll try ur fix tomorrow , but i think that it will work cause u sound like u made alot of researches , THANKS

    Beige

    9 Jan 10 at 11:00 pm

  149. Glad I found this! Out of thousands of songs, I had 5 or 6 that couldn't be added to a playlist and wouldn't add to the library even when trying to do them manually. This solved my problem.

    derek

    10 Jan 10 at 11:47 pm

  150. This did help me, thanks for your efforts.

    Big D

    14 Jan 10 at 5:01 pm

  151. Thank you very much! It was giving me so much trouble, but it work perfectly for me.

    Arthur

    15 Jan 10 at 2:54 am

  152. Need a version that works with Unicode. But other than that gr8

    grag

    15 Jan 10 at 3:35 am

  153. Excellent Post. Thanks for the help.

    TrueBlue

    17 Jan 10 at 12:41 am

  154. Thanks a ton, I was having the same problem where iTunes would just ignore certain albums. This fix worked perfectly!!

    nottom

    23 Jan 10 at 8:01 pm

  155. Thank you , this really works

    Meltin Pot

    24 Jan 10 at 5:27 am

  156. Thank You! I searched everywhere for an answer, and this did it. You're awesome!

    Shan

    26 Jan 10 at 9:39 pm

  157. My god, I had this problem for like two months, and I just had to came here and leave a comment saying… THANK YOU

    Rafael

    29 Jan 10 at 5:15 am

  158. Add me to the list of people who've already said it, but I'll say it again…thanks!

    Jeff

    1 Feb 10 at 12:16 pm

  159. Thanks!! I had a file that no matter what I tried would not be recognized by iTUNES – could even add it to the library (but worked perfectly well everywhere else). This fix worked fast & perfectly!

    Matt

    3 Feb 10 at 11:17 pm

  160. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
    I just started using iTunes and you would not believe my frustration when one of my favorite songs decided it wouldn't play anymore! But now it's all fixed thanks to you.
    Thank you for saving me countless hours of searching on the web for a solution.

    Heather

    10 Feb 10 at 4:32 am

  161. worked like a charm.
    Opened the rar file.
    Ran the .exe
    Input the audio file
    scanned
    fixed
    played
    done.

    itworksyo.

    10 Feb 10 at 5:31 pm

  162. Thanks, this fixed some songs! Great work.

    Blogem

    15 Feb 10 at 11:02 am

  163. Thank you so much for this! I've been so frustrated with this and when I found this page I figured I might as well try it out. I didn't expect it to work so well or be this easy! Thank you for bringing my music back to me! You're an amazing person. Seriously.

    Kerri

    15 Feb 10 at 6:25 pm

  164. You saved my life man, thanks a lot!

    zimmi

    7 Mar 10 at 3:49 pm

  165. Thanks a ton. This worked and your directions were spot on. Very easy.

    WoC

    9 Mar 10 at 7:57 pm

  166. Thanks for this. Saved me a ball of ache trying to find out exactly which songs didn't work and fixing them individually.

    Nevann

    19 Mar 10 at 3:32 am

  167. Thank you so much! I was getting so stressed out, and everyone elses solutions seemed to be bogus. Thank you!

    Davey

    23 Mar 10 at 11:33 pm

  168. Thanks a lot dude, i couldnt work out what was going on.

    Phil

    29 Mar 10 at 9:16 am

  169. THANK YOU!!!!

    Anon

    31 Mar 10 at 2:53 am

  170. omg thank you soooooo much! you're such a great help! you are awesome! keep it up and thanks again :D

    Angel :)

    5 Apr 10 at 7:34 am

  171. Thank you!
    Your instructions worked fine.

    Wolf

    5 Apr 10 at 6:49 pm

  172. Just wanted to say thank you – this was a big help! :)

    Katie

    8 Apr 10 at 10:47 pm

  173. Thank you so much!

    anon

    11 Apr 10 at 10:27 pm

  174. THANK YOU!!!!! I have spent so many hours trying to figure this out.

    Danielle122

    16 Apr 10 at 8:03 pm

  175. Wow! You kinda saved my life.

    Troy

    18 Apr 10 at 2:25 am

  176. thank u so much bro, what a legend,

    phill199218

    24 Apr 10 at 7:57 am

  177. THANK YOU so so so much. I can't be more relieved right now. You should be proud that you've helped so many people!

    Grif

    25 Apr 10 at 12:16 pm

  178. Hey everyone, I just added the new “Facebook” Like button to the site, so make sure you “Like” this post to share it with others. You can find the Like button at the start of the post.

    Trevin

    28 Apr 10 at 12:53 am

  179. Thank You So Much, man! This fixed the problem! I contacted apple with the problem and they didn't help.

    Gio

    4 May 10 at 12:29 am

  180. THANK YOU!

    jrock79

    5 May 10 at 8:26 pm

  181. Thank you for the wonderful advice! This worked like a charm.

    Jon

    6 May 10 at 12:40 pm

  182. Just saw some of my songs didn't worked on itunes but on ipod (also use itunes DJ) , and well , this thing helped me :p

    MephilesAE

    13 May 10 at 5:36 pm

  183. Ok this is old, but you saved me from extensive research. thanks!

    Ure the best

    17 May 10 at 4:52 am

  184. Thank you very much! This saved my day :)

    jack

    20 May 10 at 1:39 pm

  185. Had the same problem, itunes 9. This worked for me, thanx a million :)

    Randommer

    25 May 10 at 8:29 pm

  186. Thank you! I couldn't figure out why my favorite songs weren't playing after an iTunes update, and this fixed the problem right away.

    Carolyn Hoke

    28 May 10 at 9:06 am

  187. Thank you so much!
    I can NOW listen to Switchfoot on iTunes :D
    Great job!

    liz

    29 May 10 at 4:21 am

  188. Exceptional work man, delighted you found a solution, really helped me.

    Dave

    30 May 10 at 10:54 pm

  189. Thank you so much! Thanks for taking the time to write this guide! :)

    Jonmiddle

    31 May 10 at 8:57 pm

  190. You're a freakin life saver! this saved at least 20% of my library

    Nobolexsc

    3 Jun 10 at 1:19 am

  191. thanks mate this worked for me :-)

    Dee

    5 Jun 10 at 8:25 am

  192. worked like a charm!! thanks!!

    costu

    7 Jun 10 at 11:12 am

  193. Thanks been a big help!

    Lindykins

    15 Jun 10 at 7:45 pm

  194. I really appreciate this…

    Laz

    16 Jun 10 at 4:01 am

  195. thank you so much, you really saved me some time! very good quide, keep it up!
    cheers

    Niclas Holtappels

    16 Jun 10 at 3:31 pm

  196. Thank you soooo much!! u hav no idea how much this means to me. music is my life, especially when it comes to Glee ^_^

    Joseph Prophet

    16 Jun 10 at 3:38 pm

  197. Thanks man it helped alot

    DhrChibi

    18 Jun 10 at 2:22 pm

  198. Have been looking for over a hour now, finally found your post and it works like a charm! Thanks =D
    I can finally listen to my favorite music again now!

    Richie Heijmans

    23 Jun 10 at 3:33 pm

  199. Thanks so much for this tutoriaI find it super helpful and it worked one thing I found out was that with songs that have a title in a different language other than english it was not finding it but when switched to english it worked fine. It was just a little time consuming as I have many songs with asian characters as their titles. But worked awesome! (Y)

    Ghizuu

    25 Jun 10 at 8:48 pm

  200. Your article is really helpful!

    Uninstall Program

    26 Jun 10 at 2:38 pm

  201. Thanks for the help, easily fixed a couple problems with some old audio books files.

    Many Thanks

    Kudos

    30 Jun 10 at 7:20 pm

  202. Thank you SO much, I had this problem on a bunch of albums in my Itunes library and it was bugging the living daylights out of me. I heard about MP3 Validator on the Apple Support forums but it all looked like a bunch of Greek to me and your guide to it made it so easy to fix all my files and they are working again!

    Sarah Feng

    3 Jul 10 at 2:37 pm

  203. OH MY THANK YOU SO MUCH! Most of my favourite songs weren't playing but now they are after this fix. thanks again!

    Wisdom Fiatuse

    9 Jul 10 at 9:32 am

  204. Dude, you are a hero! Thank you so much!!

    do__ O b

    13 Jul 10 at 12:04 am

  205. Thanks so much for your help! This fixed my Muse album!!

    Jeremy

    16 Jul 10 at 5:40 pm

  206. Great work dude, thanks alot. It saved alot of time and working awesome.

    Neo

    22 Jul 10 at 2:43 am

  207. Perfection. Thanks. I was always wondering why I could never add certain albums to my itunes even though I could use it on everything else! :D

    中島誠 Maki

    25 Jul 10 at 8:31 pm

  208. Wow, thank you so very much! I had this same problem and I'm glad this was one of the first search results, it saved me probably a lot of time…

    Scott

    27 Jul 10 at 7:06 am

  209. THANK YOU I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

    Anon

    2 Aug 10 at 12:59 pm

  210. OMFG
    THAAAAAAAANKS :)
    Really I was searching for yhis in spanish and really impossible to find a solition, I search in english and Voilá :)
    Works for me :)
    THANKS

    alv4

    5 Aug 10 at 2:15 am

  211. does the job, thx a million!

    Ivo

    11 Aug 10 at 8:45 pm

  212. Thanks so much!! This was driving me crazy!!!

    Gillianf

    12 Aug 10 at 3:11 am

  213. Dude literally you're a lifesaver! Thank you so much, I thought like 2 or 3 songs had this problem and it turned out I had like a billion without realizing, thanks man!

    trevinchowfanasofnow

    16 Aug 10 at 1:43 pm

  214. Thanks so much for this information!

    Anon

    21 Aug 10 at 2:19 am

  215. Thanks this was really annoying me

    Guest

    24 Aug 10 at 5:44 pm

  216. thank you so much! this was frustrating me to no end and no other website had any helpful suggestions.
    my only question now is can i delete the validator off my laptop or will the songs stop working again?

    kristen

    28 Aug 10 at 4:13 am

  217. Kristen: you can safely remove the validator app.

    Trevin

    28 Aug 10 at 7:32 am

  218. the program didn’t work for me, when I try adding a file it says “Operation completed successfully.” but the file is not in the list.. I tried running it as administrator and it didn’t help…

    unc0mm0n

    29 Aug 10 at 3:27 pm

  219. An update.. this specific file that winamp and WMP can read with no problem this program you gave doesn’t recognize… it works for the rest of the items thou

    unc0mm0n

    29 Aug 10 at 3:35 pm

  220. Thanks for the excellent advice – Problem solved!!

    Mark M

    30 Aug 10 at 1:52 am

  221. THANKYOU SO VERY MUCH! this was driving me insane to the point that i was going to give up on iTunes. i found that i ran into the problem anytime i changed the details of a music file (for example changing the track number) after which it refused to play in iTunes but would play in anything else. this had fixed it :D
    Can’t thank you enough. :)

    bubblysakura

    30 Aug 10 at 6:21 am

  222. Thank you so much! You are amazing!!

    Diana

    1 Sep 10 at 1:19 am

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