Audio attached to an object sometimes clips the last second or two

In my project, a number of slides are built where upon entering the slide, a smart shape button object displays with text and pauses at 1.5 seconds. Upon clicking the button, an Advanced Action is triggered and the playhead advances through the slide. One of the objects at about 3 seconds is a shape object with audio attached - maybe a 5-second narration. Let's call this shape ABC.

When previewing, everything works fine, including all the Advanced Action logic that shows and hides objects and also jumps the play head around. So there is some complexity, but it all works fine.

However, after actually publishing the project, some of the ABC objects, with the 5-second narration, have the tail end of the audio cut off. And, it's not always the same slides that exhibit this behavior. All the slides in question have plenty of room for the audio to play. And other objects with audio attached don't seem to have this problem. I know the playhead is still moving because I'm monitoring the current frame number.

So, to summarize:

-- enter the slide

-- playhead pauses at 1.5 seconds and only one smart shape object is visible

-- click the smart shape and playhead advances, and another obect with audio attached is visible

That object with audio attached sometimes has its last second or so cut off. About 25 slides are structured this way and the problem occurs intermittently and on different slides. This problem only reveals itself after publishing -- previews work fine.

Any ideas about how to fix this would be most helpful.