Can not get board to boot up reliably

[Leo]

leo, if you have some spare time give the q4os image a try and see how that one behaves for you.

Hello dkryder,

Ran out to get another SD-Card (Scandisk 8GB) for clean start to test...
It seems to act the same way as my other images.What is the cold-start clearing?
My shorthand notes for your interest:

Downloaded q4os-pine64-1803 from https://q4os.org and burn with Win32DiskImager.

#define cold-start = Power down and wait 30sec and power again
#define boot-failed = On boot, does not get past cfg80211 and software lock as mentioned in post
#define reset-failed = taking the Reset input connected to EXT but pin to ground, does not get past cfg80211 and software lock

First boot Ethernet + Serial adapter on EXP only
(boot-failed)
(cold-start ok)

Resize image:
$sudo resize_rootfs.sh

Bootloader and Kernel update:
$sudo pine64_update_uboot.sh
$reboot
(boot-failed, reset-failed)
(cold start failed x3)
$sudo pine64_update_kernel.sh
(You are already latest version - abort)

Os update:
$sudo apt-get update
(error - must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure a ' to correct)
$sudo dpkg -a
$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$sudo reboot
(boot-failed, reset-failed)
(cold-start ok)

Login and test a reboot
$sudo reboot
(boot-failed, reset-failed)
(cold-start Ok)

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My mental score-sheet says that more of a chance if you shutdown, remove power, wait 30 sec and power again (cold start).
It does not work every time, but certainly more often than a software reboot or the reset input on the Euler bus.
I mention 30 sec because it seems better than 10 or 20.

Are we sure that there is not a floating voltage that must be drained?

You have the same gut feeling that I do... I was suggesting before that like another user connecting the HDMI seemed to be resolving the headless boot issue for me, but it didn't *always* resolve it... I still got one or two bookup lockups. It seemed to go away more when I also pulled the battery, and left it for 30 seconds to fully kill any residual power/memory. But I don't have any empirical evidence of that, and I was pulling the power completely because it was still being stupid, so couldn't put the finger on it being power disconnect rather than simply another reboot.

My reason to try decouple the AXP803 with a 10nf as close to the VBUS input (which never helped).
The Reset input on the EXT Bus is an input to the AXP803 and my worry is that the 'glitch' is behind this circuit and Reset is not removing it like the cold-start seems to and the AX is stuck in the same problem.