PBP won't boot from eMMC or SD card: a saga

[James Good]

Hey folks, noob here. I've done as much as I can to solve this on my own because I don't want to be the user whose question is answered with "uh, there's already a comprehensive guide for that, search the forum next time", but I'm really at a loss now. I have the US layout Pinebook Pro running Manjaro with Plasma KDE pretty much exactly how it came to me. Since I'm new to Linux (currently posting from a Windows 10 desktop) and I don't have a good idea of what's causing my problem, I'm going to describe everything here as thoroughly as possible, so this post will be long.

The current problem: when I try to turn on my PBP the power LED lights up red, then turns green, and then, if I'm trying to boot normally from the eMMC, the boot logo comes up with its little progress wheel, but after about two revolutions it hangs there indefinitely. Once it freezes, everything but the power button is unresponsive. If I try to boot from my bootable SD card, I get a red LED, then a green LED, but a black screen that just stays that way.

If I boot from eMMC and I hit the keyboard shortcut before the boot logo freezes, I can switch to a virtual console, and tty2-6 work as expected - I can even switch back to tty1, where my GUI should be, but the screen stays black, sometimes with a cursor (which can move, somehow, but there's nothing to click) and sometimes without. Once or twice the frozen logo has appeared on tty1 with a movable cursor - which still can't interact with anything - but I can't figure out why it only does that sometimes, or even whether that's important.

I had my PBP for a few months as my first Linux machine, and everything was great. Then I went without using it for several weeks (just coincidentally, nothing was wrong with it), during which I mostly left it plugged in, but I had the thought that that might be bad for the battery, so I unplugged it for a while. This cycle recurred several times, so over that period, I probably left it in both states for too long, overcharging and then dying entirely. Yes, I am an idiot, thank you for asking. When I finally opened it up to use again, it froze at the boot logo like I described above.

I went through as many wiki articles, forum posts, and Reddit threads as I could stomach and found some things to try, none of which fixed the problem. Unfortunately this happened a couple weeks ago so I don't remember all the details, but they included:

-fixing my locale (which had been wrong due to my own error)
-installing updates (someone had a similar issue caused by the battery dying mid-update) including refreshing mirrors
-rolling back drivers (apparently there were issues with a recent Nvidia driver causing black screen)
-opening up the case to check eMMC switch position (it was fine) and ribbon cables (they were also fine)
-troubleshooting X11, because $xinit and $startx had returned errors, but all I could parse was something about font folders - I think I ended up reinstalling X
-updating Plasma KDE packages specifically (I had this written down but I don't recall which packages or why)

I finally decided to just do a clean install of Manjaro. This was tricky since my PBP is the only device I have with an SD card reader, but I backed up my user data (so, for the record, there's nothing on it now that I need to save, so all solutions are viable) and then made a bootable SD card via virtual console (which, for me, was an achievement).

Everything seemed fine after a successful clean Manjaro installation - it powered on normally, the GUI functioned as expected, I got my settings dialed back in without issue.

I tried to run a system update but got an error about files that already existed. Unfortunately I can't remember what program was causing the issue, but the recommendation I found was to force an update as superuser, which I did, and things seemed resolved. But I had the bright idea to restart after the update, so I did, but instead of coming back on normally, it froze at the boot logo again. I tried more internet searching and fiddled with some things, trying to remember exactly what I'd done before. However, I was by then righteously pissed, so I decided, fuck it, I'll just re-re-install, but now it won't even boot from the SD card, which I haven't touched since the first reinstall.

The virtual consoles still work, but I still haven't been able to boot either from the SD or normally into the GUI and I can't find any advice I haven't already tried to follow. I tried $xinit and $startx again, which yields the same errors as before, and I tried powering on with the eMMC switched off and then switching it back on when the LED comes on, which also did not resolve anything.

To summarize, the timeline was, to the best of my recollection:

-Normal use
-Probably plugged in too long followed by allowing battery to die several times
-Freeze on boot
-Attempt software troubleshooting
  -Locale
  -Updates
  -Driver check
  -Try to address X11 issues in particular after $xinit and $startx fail
-Attempt hardware troubleshooting
  -All switches and cables in place
-Reinstall OS, boots normally
-Run software updates
  -One error, resolved by installing via CLI as superuser
-Restart after updates out of habit
-Freeze on boot again
-Try $xinit and $startx, same errors as before
-Try to clean install again but won't boot from SD at all, just green LED and black screen
-Try booting with SD and hotswitching eMMC (this struck me as odd but I found it at https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...6#pid62426)
-Despair, weep openly, rage at unjust god, walk the dog for emotional cooldown
-Post on pine64 forum

So, do I need to resign myself to a virtual console-only PBP experience? Am I just taking something for granted that I shouldn't? Did I do this to myself? Is there any good in this world at all? I need to pare down some of my hobbies anyway, so let me know if it's a lost cause and I'll delete my account and go back to doing resin castings. Anyway, I tend to be a quick learner and I like digging into new things, but my Linux experience - and CLI knowledge - is limited to my time with my PBP and Manjaro, so responses on the level of "Baby's First Linux" would be entirely warranted. Thanks, everyone.

Like you, my own experience with the PineBook Pro and Manjaro were major disappointments.  Finally after almost a year of near total frustration, one of the leaders in this forum confirmed what I had thought: there was (or had been) a major problem with one of the Manjaro distros and that a few Linux users had compiled and tested other versions of Linux that would work within the memory limits of the PineBook Pro.  I followed one of the links that were provided and downloaded one of the versions offered.  That file was burned to a new micro USB card, the card put into the PBP slot and the PBP powered up.  For the first time in many, many months it went to the log-in screen then to the initial desktop.  My only wonders (problems, complaints, concerns) now are how to get the BlueTooth (BT), the internal camera, the microphone(s), and the speakers to work and become recognized by the new OS.  Overall, I and some of my friends that are working to help me learn Linux and Python are impressed with the way the PBP now seems to work.