In my audio application when I sometimes need to switch to a different sample format and/or rate, I usually leave the audio device open and merely reconfigure the device to the new parameters. This works with all the regular pcm devices, but it fails when I use the "hdmi" device. It seemed to just silently fail and no audio output is heard. As far as I know, no error condition is triggered (but I'll admit, my knowledge of the alsa api is rather limited).

My question, Is this a bug or is it supposed to work this way and if so are there ways to detect whether a devices needs to be reopened or not.

Thanks,

Sander