Not Bypassing the eMMC

[meansbs]

So far I've made no changes to my PinePhone Pro Explorer edition.  I received it back in January, got super frustrated and shelved it until last week when I got it back out and started fiddling again.

On a surface level, I see, booting consists of:

Pressing the power button
6 seconds go by
Vibration for 1 second
Red light for 2 seconds
White light for 1 second
blank screen
boot screen
[    0.232045] rockchip-usb2phy ff770000.syscon:usb2phy@e460: failed to create phy
[    0.429706] imx258 1-001a: failed to read chip id 258
[    0.745578] bootsplash: Failed to initialize.
Warning: /lib/modules/5.16.2-2-MANJARO-ARM/modules.devname not found - ignoring
Starting version 250.3-1-arch
ROOT_MNJRO: recovering journal
ROOT_MNJRO: Clearing blah, blah, blah, blah .....

Several places provide instructions for bypassing the eMMC by "hold the RE button underneath the cover for a few (or multiple) seconds, while powering on the device" and "holding it too long will cause the eMMC to not get initialized after the boot".

I have a PNY256 GB microSD card with postmarketOS flashed to it in the microSD slot under the back cover.  I have verified the phone sees it by loading Manjaro and checking for /dev/mmc* and looking with the gnome disks utility.  Gnome disks shows it as mmcblk1, partition 1 pmOS_boot, partition 2 pmOS_root, Partition Type Linux (Bootable).

I've pressed the RE button before, during and after the power button, the 6 second interval, the vibration, the red light, the white light, the blank screen and the boot screen.  I've pressed the RE button it quickly, I've pressed it for a few seconds, I've pressed it for several seconds during all the various power on events.

Any of the combination described result in either the boot sequence freezing where it is, Manjaro booting normally, or I get dumped into an emergency shell.  At no point have ever been able to boot from the microSD.  I've also tried different operating systems on different SD cards.

What am I doing wrong?  If someone could literally spell it out for me I'd be very appreciative.

Thanks.

[dukla2000]

OK, I suspect your SDcard is not bootable (boot freezing) and I would recommend you download and flash a Mobian image on that SDcard and give it a try.

Your phone out of the factory contains on the eMMC a bootloader that loads the SDcard first if it can. Otherwise it tries to load Manjaro from the eMMC. No RE needed at any stage. It seems your Manjaro is also duff.

I am not sure about pmOS for PPP but think you actually have to cook your own image with pmbootstrap, which is probably why you are having grief with pmOS.

The 20220327 Mobian image on an SDcard should boot fine using the bootloader from the eMMC. You can then start playing other options like Tow-boot.
Mobian is here: https://images.mobian.org/pinephonepro/w...327.img.gz

[meansbs]

OK, I suspect your SDcard is not bootable (boot freezing) and I would recommend you download and flash a Mobian image on that SDcard and give it a try.

Your phone out of the factory contains on the eMMC a bootloader that loads the SDcard first if it can. Otherwise it tries to load Manjaro from the eMMC. No RE needed at any stage. It seems your Manjaro is also duff.

I am not sure about pmOS for PPP but think you actually have to cook your own image with pmbootstrap, which is probably why you are having grief with pmOS.

The 20220327 Mobian image on an SDcard should boot fine using the bootloader from the eMMC. You can then start playing other options like Tow-boot.
Mobian is here: https://images.mobian.org/pinephonepro/w...327.img.gz

Thanks for the help.  Mobian booted with no problems.  I'm in a bit over my head with this stuff, but hopefully I'll figure some of it out.

[fxc]

OK, I suspect your SDcard is not bootable (boot freezing) and I would recommend you download and flash a Mobian image on that SDcard and give it a try.

Your phone out of the factory contains on the eMMC a bootloader that loads the SDcard first if it can. Otherwise it tries to load Manjaro from the eMMC. No RE needed at any stage. It seems your Manjaro is also duff.

I am not sure about pmOS for PPP but think you actually have to cook your own image with pmbootstrap, which is probably why you are having grief with pmOS.

The 20220327 Mobian image on an SDcard should boot fine using the bootloader from the eMMC. You can then start playing other options like Tow-boot.
Mobian is here: https://images.mobian.org/pinephonepro/w...327.img.gz

Thanks for the help.  Mobian booted with no problems.  I'm in a bit over my head with this stuff, but hopefully I'll figure some of it out.

postmarketOS has no image for the Pro so I assume you simply flashed the completely wrong file previously.