AudioComponent causing packaged project to crash (I think...)

I am using a tool that uses the UudioComponent.cpp (\UE_5.1\Engine\Source\Runtime\Engine\Private\Components\AudioComponent.cpp).

Everything is fine in editor and things worked fine in UE4.27. However, once packaged, the application crashes on startup (i.e., trys to start and then aborts) with only the following clue showing up in the log.
LogAudioMixer: Warning: AudioMixerPlatformInterface Timeout [5031] waiting for h/w. InstanceID=1

I have verified that if I remove the component that has the UAudioComponent the application works just fine and I don’t see the LogAudioMixer timeout anymore.

Any insight folks may have? (I will look at github commit log too)… This could be a 5.1 bug but I’m not sure I can update to 5.2 and definately can’t update to 5.3+ (to my great dismay) at this time.