Premiere Pro Audio preview files missing in its home folder but audio is still working... HELP!

Hi.

I'm currently in the middle of editing a project on Premiere Pro 23.4 and I just noticed that my audio preview files folder is empty - BUT everything (sound) is playing without needing renders. Normally if files dont exist, they need to be generated. I have no idea how all the footage in my project is working without preview files, but I have nearly 2 Terrabites of footage in multiple sequences. I'm quite advanced in this project  and I'm now concerned that I will have issues later on and I can't miss deadlines. I've checked scratch disk locations and prevews are set in my original project folder, but nowhere to be seen...EMPTY ! I tripple checked and there is nowhere else these could have gone.  This makes no sense. Nothing gets generated, yet all is working as it should... I even duplicated the project and reset things to see if that would change things, but no avail.

I don't want to restart as I've got over a week of work done already.

Anyone have  a solution or answer to this??? I'm concerned this will bite me in the bum when it comes to finalizing as these files should normally exist. Is there a way to force generate sometjhing like that. Hust hitting render audio isn't a solution. I tried already.  Confused as to how things are playing.

Help!

TIA

Kevin