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My iMac's songs play for ~8 seconds and stop.

All of a sudden today, any song select on my iMac song library plays for just ~8 seconds and stops.

Any fix?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 12.2

Posted on Feb 21, 2022 2:05 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 22, 2022 3:25 PM

The 8 second song drop was happening whether attempting to play a downloaded song or a streaming song. It turns out the culprit was my computer searching for the Bose Mini speaker it was no longer paired to. I guess the search stops after 8 seconds? Apparently, my placing the speaker on its charging base disconnected the Bluetooth pairing. The iMac should have automatically reverted to its internal speaker, but for some reason it didn't. Funny, though, that a song would play via the iMac's internal speaker for 8 seconds. Perhaps a pairing problem notification message is supposed to pop up on screen at the 8 second point? Regardless, I rectified the 8 second playback problem by selecting the iMac's "Settings" icon, "Sounds" submenu, and there choosing the internal speaker option. And when I once again paired the (now charged) Bose external speaker with the iMac, all songs played normally. Just some weird anomaly I had never experienced in the two years I have used this Bose Mini speaker. Hope this information is helpful to anyone experiencing a similar circumstance, but then again I hope nobody ever does--It's scary to think your entire music library may be corrupted!

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 22, 2022 3:25 PM in response to Sparks0829

The 8 second song drop was happening whether attempting to play a downloaded song or a streaming song. It turns out the culprit was my computer searching for the Bose Mini speaker it was no longer paired to. I guess the search stops after 8 seconds? Apparently, my placing the speaker on its charging base disconnected the Bluetooth pairing. The iMac should have automatically reverted to its internal speaker, but for some reason it didn't. Funny, though, that a song would play via the iMac's internal speaker for 8 seconds. Perhaps a pairing problem notification message is supposed to pop up on screen at the 8 second point? Regardless, I rectified the 8 second playback problem by selecting the iMac's "Settings" icon, "Sounds" submenu, and there choosing the internal speaker option. And when I once again paired the (now charged) Bose external speaker with the iMac, all songs played normally. Just some weird anomaly I had never experienced in the two years I have used this Bose Mini speaker. Hope this information is helpful to anyone experiencing a similar circumstance, but then again I hope nobody ever does--It's scary to think your entire music library may be corrupted!

Feb 22, 2022 12:06 PM in response to cornyray

Hi there cornyray,


From what we can tell, songs are only playing for the first eight seconds when listening on your Mac. We're glad you've joined us in Apple Support Communities, and we’d like to learn more to see how we can help.


Is this happening with streaming content or songs that are downloaded on your Mac? Does this happen with every song you listen to? Are you accessing these tracks in Apple Music?


Next, try working through the suggestions in this link:


If you have problems playing music on Mac


Let us know how it goes, and we'll take a closer look from there.


Cheers.

My iMac's songs play for ~8 seconds and stop.

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