[SOLVED] Bizarre ALSA behavior (suddenly no sound in some cases)

I use an NVidia HDMI card to output both sound and video on my HTPC.  Until recently, it worked flawlessly.  Now, I am unable to get sound output in any web browser, nor have I been able to successfully get aplay to work when troubleshooting.  However, I can get (full 5.1 surround) sound by selecting the NVidia HDMI 1 output in both VLC and Kodi.
I can get speaker-test to work when I issue:
$ speaker-test -c 6 -D hdmi:NVidia,1
aplay is not so successful:
$ aplay -D hdmi:NVidia,1 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
Playing WAVE '/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono
aplay: set_params:1239: Channels count non available
Normally, plughw is the fix for that, however no sound is output via the following:
$ aplay -D plughw:1,7 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
Playing WAVE '/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono
I've tried many other permutations of aplay -D to no avail.  They all fail in similar manners.  I confirmed via alsamixer that all channels/devices are unmuted.
I have made no recent hardware changes.  My system is up to date via pacman -Syu and running smoothly otherwise.
My previously working .asoundrc is as follows:
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm {
type hw
card 1
device 7
Here are the results of aplay -l and aplay -L:
$ aplay -l;aplay -L
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 0: ALC1150 Analog [ALC1150 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 1: ALC1150 Digital [ALC1150 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
PulseAudio Sound Server
default:CARD=Generic
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=Generic
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
Front speakers
surround21:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=Generic,DEV=0
HD-Audio Generic, ALC1150 Digital
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=1
HDA NVidia, HDMI 1
HDMI Audio Output
Any ideas on what might have happened and/or how to fix default audio output?
Last edited by yuri_rage (2015-04-16 15:08:25)

Still no solution here.  I tried the default fallback kernel, in case it was a recent update issue, but that did not help.  I have not yet attempted reversion to an earlier release.
Here is my system info:
$ uname -a
Linux ****** 3.19.3-3-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 8 14:10:00 CEST 2015 x86_64 GNU/Linux
jfarthing84, it does seem similar.  Perhaps some applications "speak" ALSA better than others (or use more direct hardware access).  I find it very odd that aplay offers little help with troubleshooting the issue.
Last edited by yuri_rage (2015-04-13 16:07:28)

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