piCorePlayer loses audio, must pull power to restart

Have the following system:

• piCorePlayer 3.10
• IQaudio dig-amp+
• Raspberry Pi Official 7in Touch Screen
• Jivelite

The system will stay functional for several days to two weeks at a time, with frequent use of power off/power on or play to resume (Official Logitech Remote). At random, will press next track in Pandora, or perhaps play a radio station on Tune-in, or even press "on", and there is no audio. Jivelite continues to display what it "thinks" is playing, progress bar advances, volume displays up and down action. But no sound. The LMS Web Interface continues to "think" there is an active player attached, shows progress bar, skips to new song, yada-yada-yada. No sound.

So far, I have tried:

• restarting squeezelite - no luck
• rebooting piCorePlayer - sometimes 3-4 times to restart with audio; sometimes even that won't work
• physically pulling power and waiting 30 seconds or so - almost always works, may have to try twice to get LMS to see player

Is this expected behavior? I was wondering about the piCorePlayer option for chron jobs to restart squeezelite or reboot piCorePlayer on a timed daily/weekly/monthly schedule.Do I need to do that to avoid this behavior?

I'd really like piCorePlayer to work as an appliance, similar to my Squeezebox Boom - turn it on/off and it just works.