I've been on the 09/01 build for a while. Everything works as expected with no real problems. I haven't had a chance to update my installation even though 2 updates were available (16/01 and 23/01).
Yesterday morning on my way to work, I've had the device playing audio with no problems. A few hours after that I started experiencing audio failure on my device. Let me explain, the audio works but freezes the device.
I would playback a voice message and it would first freeze for a second or two when the play button is pressed, thereafter it would play 2 seconds, freeze, play 2 seconds, freeze. I initially thought it may be a problem with WhatsApp, but this clearly extended far beyond that. My audio player did the same thing. I received a call from my boss, and there it did the exact same thing. This leads me to believe that something caused my audio drivers/hardware to just come crashing down.
I have no funny business going on on my device. All apps come through the Play Store, and those with root (su) access are extremely limited. I haven't installed any apps or modules that could directly be responsible for this. I'm a software dev by trade so I am extremely wary of where my apps come from.
I reflashed the 23/01 build and so far so good. Has anyone else experienced an episode like this?
I'm just scared that in a week or two it starts doing it again. It seems the issue is related to audio only and when you go to Settings -> Sounds, it takes a few seconds to open the menu. I'm worried that this is a compacting issue where something goes wrong and it builds up and builds up until this happens.