PinePhone won't boot after software update

[jb2000]

I have a Beta Edition PinePhone that I've been using since November of last year. I installed Mobian on the SD card (and also installed Tow-Boot as now required) and outside some minor hiccups have been fairly pleased with the experience. This past Sunday I did a routine software update from within GNOME Software and after resetting following the installation of updates the PinePhone would no longer boot. The LED still turns cyan after I hold the volume-down button to boot from the SD card (as is the case after Tow-Boot is installed) but shortly afterwards turns off and just reboots itself. I'm still able to browse the files on the SD card from a desktop and I'm still able to boot operating systems on other SD cards and from the eMMC meaning the issue is with this particular installation itself.

Frankly I have no idea where to begin in solving this issue. Is there a key I can press on an attached physical keyboard when booting to try and recover the system? Maybe some sort of recovery media I can load somehow? Any insight or recommendations on how to restore this installation would be appreciated.

[Gumur]

I have a Beta Edition PinePhone that I've been using since November of last year. I installed Mobian on the SD card (and also installed Tow-Boot as now required) and outside some minor hiccups have been fairly pleased with the experience. This past Sunday I did a routine software update from within GNOME Software and after resetting following the installation of updates the PinePhone would no longer boot. The LED still turns cyan after I hold the volume-down button to boot from the SD card (as is the case after Tow-Boot is installed) but shortly afterwards turns off and just reboots itself. I'm still able to browse the files on the SD card from a desktop and I'm still able to boot operating systems on other SD cards and from the eMMC meaning the issue is with this particular installation itself.

Frankly I have no idea where to begin in solving this issue. Is there a key I can press on an attached physical keyboard when booting to try and recover the system? Maybe some sort of recovery media I can load somehow? Any insight or recommendations on how to restore this installation would be appreciated.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I think your installation may be definitely broken.

I have this doubt: what occurs if while updating, they are uploading files? Don't know, but to avoid this I decided to do the updates only on Monday, once a week.

[Zebulon Walton]

I perform periodic full image backups of the eMMC so that if updates go horribly wrong the phone can be easily returned to a working state. Also I keep a "known to work" SD card handy to boot from, just in case.

I've thought about just not doing updates at all since the phone has worked well enough for my needs for some time now. I keep hoping though that some of the rough edges will get polished at some point, so for now I still do updates once or twice a week.