So I’m trying to change the length of this recording, as it should be 2:50 instead of 3:49 (see both Bandcamp and SoundCloud (which seems to be 1 second shorter for some reason)). The issue is that I can’t find an option to change the length. It looks like someone tried to change it in the past but it was not approved.
Here is what I see when trying to edit the song:
Only standalone recordings have an editable length. Other recordings length is dynamically computed from the corresponding track(s) length. Hence, you should fix the track length at https://musicbrainz.org/track/1c8790c8-b14d-3d7b-a3c1-a23b1db44b57 instead.
I edited the release as you suggested, but I’m still wondering how moskabouter edited the recording itself here, and why it didn’t actually apply to the track? It says it was applied but looking at the recording it’s still 3:49? Is this because the length is based on the track length in the release, which stayed at 3:49?
AFAIK the recording lengths used to be editable, but changed to being calculated from the releases. So the edit for sure applied, but later it was updated again automatically.
Also as a more general rule don’t get too mad about recording length. Differences of a few seconds are quite common due to added silence before and after the song itself.
@outsidecontext is right. They used to be editable but are now just calculated.
Note that your edit will be applied only in 6 days, unless 3 editors vote yes to it. Welcome aboard!
In this case, the difference was of 1 minute, most probably because of mistyped minute digit. 
Editor’s cat has struck again? 
Ah, I just saw the one second difference. I guess having a minute difference was completely out of my expectation 
