clock alarm volume no longer overrides general volume settings

I have been using my ipad Clock Alarm for years. The alarm would ring loudly no matter what I had set the overall volume to. It also appeared to disregard the silent switch.

Because alarm clock is so important, I considered this to be a feature.

I could be texting or viewing videos at bedtime while my wife was sleeping next to me--I could set the overall volume with the up/down buttons to be low, and not have to remember to push it back up, or have to check the silent button for the alarm to wake me in the morning. In the last month or so I have overslept on a couple of occasions because, apparently, now the alarm clock volume follows the overall sound effects setting.

Is there a way to make the Clock alarm volume be consistent regardless of the sound effects setting or the silent switch?

I see that other people are having a similar (but different) problem where their alarms are not working at all, and the solution is to delete all alarms and re-enter them. I tried this but alarm clock alarms are still silent if the Sound Effects are set very low.