Hello,
After scouring the internet and my own testing I was able to fix this problem many others have reported with mostly bogus solutions (at least in my case).
Audio breaks for about a half second every 5 minutes consistently on video, MP3’s and streaming services.
Resolution: Replace the HDMI cable
I had tried the following things before trying the easy test (HDMI cable):
Reverted to old firmware
reset device with a pin to bottom button
modified every system setting for audio and video over and over again
dozens of reboots
tried different hard drives
plugged drives in the front and back, thumb drives, powered drives
Now if someone can tell me how to get my Seagate 4 TB HDD to work everything will be fixed