No Sound when using Digital out with Mac Mini

The Digital out on my mac mini has become seriously unreliable. The sound slider is all the way up but locked, no movement is possible. The Toslink cable shows light, and when plugged into another device the amplifier receives sound.
This is an intermittent problem, for awhile rebooting would make the sound come back, however this has stopped working.
unplug the toslink and the built in speaker plays fine. Sound slider becomes movable.
If you sent the sound slider to 50% then plug the toslink back in it jumps to 100% and all controls ar grayed out and 0 sound.
any troubleshooting tips would be most appreciated as this is my primary audio video device.

Not likely. Think about this: The output is simply a digital stream of bits. Volume does not apply to digital bits... The first place where you can adjust volume will be in an outboard DAC, a preamp or an integrated receiver.
For a great DAC, check out ps audio "digital link III", retails currently for around $695, B stock may be avail for around 550. There is a cheaper quality DAC available from Cambridge Audio "Digital Magic", but it is not in the same league as the PS Audio or other higher cost DACs (such as Benchmark Media's DAC1).
For a fantastic audio system that takes digital audio from a Mac Mini, I have a PS Audio DL III taking Toslink from the Mini and feeding RCA analog into a Zpre from Parasound with a couple of Zamp (zone amps) from Parasound going into very nice bookshelf speakers and in ceiling speakers.
The volume is controlled by the Zpre amp ...As it must be

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