iTunes: Songs skip before they complete

Users are still experiencing issues with songs in iTunes skipping to the next song before they have finished. Starting back in iTunes 8 and continuing, this issue appears to be a bug directly related to iTunes.

Users are experiencing the skipping in iTunes anywhere from ten to fifteen seconds before the end of the song. Some users have found that the location of the skip is random and could occur at any point. Apple Support Discussions user "Crazyboy49" reports:

After reinstalling my playlists from my back up CDs, iTunes will skip to another song right in the middle of some songs or just before the end of other songs. Is there a way to fix this?

Many suggestions, including deleting the iTunes Library files, iTunes preference files, and reinstalling iTunes appear to be fruitless. ASD user "nate12345" suggests:

Select one of the tracks that's skipping, and go to File-> Get Info. Go to the options tab, and make sure that Stop Time and Start Time are unchecked. Note you can only do this for one song at a time.

Users can check their song files to ensure they are not corrupt by opening the file in Quicktime. If the file has any gaps or oscillation, you may be dealing with a corrupt file. If not, the issue is likely still related to iTunes. There does not appear to be an official fix from Apple at this point, though we will keep an eye on this issue and alert you should that change.

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