Clarett 8PreX - Dirty/Noisy gain pots?

tl;dr: Channel gain knobs are scratchy when setting gain and more commonly than not pass a very low loudness when static - implying poor contact.

First post; at my wits end. As far as I can tell I cannot find anyone online with a similar problem.

My Clarett has been a legendary interface. Over the past 12 months a problem has been exacerbating with it, though.

The input gain knobs on the front are great, with good resistance but have been developing a problem to the point, now, of poor usability.

The channel gain pots on the front face of the unit will create a terrible crackling upon rotation and when set in place they will often produce a much, much lower gain than their setting - as if they are set back to 0 gain. The other pots (primary monitor and headphone monitors) do not exhibit this behaviour.

The only way to use the device to to make micro adjustments until, by chance, a particular setting produces a reasonable gain and to not touch it which is getting harder to do.

This behaviour is (very) audible, appears on the gain meters on the device, records onto tracks, is independent of what input jack is selected (Line/Inst/Mic) on the channel and although initially the problem started on channel's 1 & 2 now affects all channels. Because of this I am very sure that it is a hardware problem, probably with either the pots or the board they are connected to.

I've tried getting into the unit to see if there is a dust problem but the front panel requires some tools/knowledge I do not possess and I cannot find a single teardown video of this equipment - not at least of the front panel. I do not even know if they are digital or analogue pots.

I haven't tried to fix the issue with airblasting or what not because I cannot access the pots and don't know if such a strategy would work.

Any help would be appreciated, thankyou!