PPP no longer boots

[Chief]

I consider my PPP officially dead. Like in Star Trek .. Kirk: "Bones how is he?"  Bones: "He's dead Jim".
I have had the device lock up before but this time regardless of methods it fails to boot whether from SD or eMMc.
This occurred when I was doing a major update on Manjaro Phosh and as we all know we must keep the device awake.
Oops .. forgot to touch the screen and that was it. It did reboot and I get the "Oops" screen and thats the end of it.
So I tried flashing Arch Linux to it and the flash went fine, shut down removed SD card and that was the end . It's possible it
has something to do with requirement for tow-boot which I have flashed to an SD card but device fails to start regardless.
Not exactly a "flagship" eh guys?

[Chief]

I just did one last attempt #4 after writing this post and ... it booted when plugged into laptop. (?)
I did this before and no luck but I also noted battery 3% critically low. When this fiasco started it was 65%.
I was able to install tow-boot to spi and all appears well at his moment. I swapped batteries with my other pinephone
and both charging at this moment. All I'm left with now is a busted sim card slot. later for that.
Adios folks.

[MadameMalady]

I just did one last attempt #4 after writing this post and  ... it booted when plugged into laptop. (?)
I did this before and no luck but I also noted battery 3% critically low. When this fiasco started it was 65%.
I was able to install tow-boot to spi and all appears well at his moment. I swapped batteries with my other pinephone
and both charging at this moment. All I'm left with now is a busted sim card slot. later for that.
Adios folks.

So, if you have Tow-Boot on spi, and the phone charges, you're still a-okay.
Charge battery.
Turn off phone
put battery in.
hold power + volume up. when it vibrates release power and keep holding volume up.
once the light is blue, plug into computer.
open disks.
format the emmc of the phone (it's the 124 gb option)
open Balena Etcher.
flash the latest image for the pinephone pro of your favorite release.
enjoy your device.

[Chief]

I just did one last attempt #4 after writing this post and  ... it booted when plugged into laptop. (?)
I did this before and no luck but I also noted battery 3% critically low. When this fiasco started it was 65%.
I was able to install tow-boot to spi and all appears well at his moment. I swapped batteries with my other pinephone
and both charging at this moment. All I'm left with now is a busted sim card slot. later for that.
Adios folks.

So, if you have Tow-Boot on spi, and the phone charges, you're still a-okay.
Charge battery.
Turn off phone
put battery in.
hold power + volume up. when it vibrates release power and keep holding volume up.
once the light is blue, plug into computer.
open disks.
format the emmc of the phone (it's the 124 gb option)
open Balena Etcher.
flash the latest image for the pinephone pro of your favorite release.
enjoy your device.

Hi ... yes I was able to recover the device. I was trying to plug into laptop but no luck.

Last attempt #4 I plugged into my Zotac and then it buzzed and started. I was able to complete
Arch install and first boot. That's when I noticed that my 65% charge was quite suddenly 3%.
That could explain things too.
All good.

[MadameMalady]

I just did one last attempt #4 after writing this post and  ... it booted when plugged into laptop. (?)
I did this before and no luck but I also noted battery 3% critically low. When this fiasco started it was 65%.
I was able to install tow-boot to spi and all appears well at his moment. I swapped batteries with my other pinephone
and both charging at this moment. All I'm left with now is a busted sim card slot. later for that.
Adios folks.

So, if you have Tow-Boot on spi, and the phone charges, you're still a-okay.
Charge battery.
Turn off phone
put battery in.
hold power + volume up. when it vibrates release power and keep holding volume up.
once the light is blue, plug into computer.
open disks.
format the emmc of the phone (it's the 124 gb option)
open Balena Etcher.
flash the latest image for the pinephone pro of your favorite release.
enjoy your device.

Hi ... yes I was able to recover the device. I was trying to plug into laptop but no luck.

Last attempt #4 I plugged into my Zotac and then it buzzed and started. I was able to complete
Arch install and first boot. That's when I noticed that my 65% charge was quite suddenly 3%.
That could explain things too.
All good.

Glad to hear it ^^
Battery reliability is still an issue for some OS creators to iron out, but it is slowly getting better.
For now, until we have a year or two of work on the Pro's images, i'd recommend keeping your battery charged and taking
it out when you go to sleep so it doesn't deplete while you rest.
If it goes to 0% your only way to charge will be to take back of phone, remove battery,
wait for it to vibrate twice, and put the battery back in to trickle-charge for a few hours (at least this was the case as of writing this).
Tow-Boot + wake-from-sleep is starting to get a lot better recently.

[Chief]

I just did one last attempt #4 after writing this post and  ... it booted when plugged into laptop. (?)
I did this before and no luck but I also noted battery 3% critically low. When this fiasco started it was 65%.
I was able to install tow-boot to spi and all appears well at his moment. I swapped batteries with my other pinephone
and both charging at this moment. All I'm left with now is a busted sim card slot. later for that.
Adios folks.

So, if you have Tow-Boot on spi, and the phone charges, you're still a-okay.
Charge battery.
Turn off phone
put battery in.
hold power + volume up. when it vibrates release power and keep holding volume up.
once the light is blue, plug into computer.
open disks.
format the emmc of the phone (it's the 124 gb option)
open Balena Etcher.
flash the latest image for the pinephone pro of your favorite release.
enjoy your device.

Hi ... yes I was able to recover the device. I was trying to plug into laptop but no luck.

Last attempt #4 I plugged into my Zotac and then it buzzed and started. I was able to complete
Arch install and first boot. That's when I noticed that my 65% charge was quite suddenly 3%.
That could explain things too.
All good.

Glad to hear it ^^
Battery reliability is still an issue for some OS creators to iron out, but it is slowly getting better.
For now, until we have a year or two of work on the Pro's images, i'd recommend keeping your battery charged and taking
it out when you go to sleep so it doesn't deplete while you rest.
If it goes to 0% your only way to charge will be to take back of phone, remove battery,
wait for it to vibrate twice, and put the battery back in to trickle-charge for a few hours (at least this was the case as of writing this).
Tow-Boot + wake-from-sleep is starting to get a lot better recently.

Yes the tow-boot works well and has solved some issues. It's similar to jump drive. Before tow boot I was flashing from Mobian on an SD card but I see that I can now flash from my laptop and Balena Etcher. Regardless I left the SD card in device with Mobian but at present I am using Manjaro Phosh once again and I agree that there is still plenty of work to do on the PPP to bring it to level of say PP Convergence which I use as daily device with Arch Linux.
Thankyou for your suggestions.