Uploaded tracks cut off - solved

[Billb]

OK, i've tried a forum search on this but with no luck (apologies if i've missed something obvious), and am now trying a request here before lodging a help ticket. 
As far as i'm concerned this is weird, and the description may be confusing:

Issue
I upload a full mp3 backing track to BandHelper from my laptop, but when I play it back in bandhelper through any layout/ setlist on my ipad it cuts the ending off the song.

Observations
When I play the track from the Repertoire:Recordings section of bandhelper it plays the whole recording however it shows the track length as shorter than the full recording. But when I play the track through any actual layout/ set list it only plays the track up to the shorter time then ends.
eg for the song Khe Sanh (Cold Chisel) the proper uploaded track is actually 4:10 long [mm:ss], but if I hit play from the actual Repertoire:Recordings screen it shows that the track is only 3:51 long.  When I play it from that Repertoire:Recordings screen it shows 3:51 as the length, but then plays the whole 4:10 of the track (the playback counter gets to 3:51 and then just keeps counting up until 4:10), however, when I play it from within a layout/ setlist it only plays the first 3:51 (ie the length it thinks it is) and then stops playing the recording. (the tempo of both recordings is correct and consistent wherever it's played from) 

History
This only started happening when I bought a new laptop a few months ago and installed Bandhelper on it (the ipad I use for practice/ gigs is unchanged).  Songs uploaded on my old laptop show the right length from the recordings screen and play the full track on my layouts/ setlist.

Workaround
I can add blank space to the end of a recording before i upload it and that seems to work - but it's really annoying.

Help please!
Does anyone have any suggestions about why this is happening? How I can stop it happening for future uploads, and what would be really handy, is it possible to fix/ workaround existing tracks?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!!

[arlo]

Please submit a help ticket and attach one of your recordings, then send the troubleshooting info from the device where the problem happens.

[Billb]

ok, just in case this helps someone else:
in short - encode the audio file to something other than MP3 (M4A works well). 
Apparently there is some issue with apple products accurately picking up the length of mp3's sometimes when they're extracted straight out of video files in some ways.  Why this only started happening when i changed pcs who knows. But this solution of not using mp3 seems to work!

[arlo]

I don't think there's a general problem with MP3s. But I have seen problems with audio files acquired from sketchy sources, like websites that rip audio from YouTube, or websites that sell karaoke tracks. In those cases, reencoding the files with a reputable audio app fixes it, whether you reencode to MP3 or another format.