Audio Clips Suddenly Mute After Splitting and Trimming

I'm currently editing a piece with two audio tracks – one for narration and one for interviews. The two tracks alternate, and each contains lots of small clips.

Now, for the second time, I'm running into an issue where some clips suddenly go silent – there's just no audio. I suspect it might have something to do with repeatedly splitting and reconnecting clips. When I go back into an already edited clip to make further cuts (like removing a few seconds), parts from the following clip sometimes shift forward unexpectedly – even though they’re supposed to come later in the timeline.

My questions:

• What could be causing this?

• Is there a best practice to avoid this kind of issue?

• How do you handle editing projects with many small audio clips without things getting messed up like this?

Thanks a lot for your help!