Updated today , now phone won't turn on/start up

This stuff is way beyong my abilities. I need to find somebody in the US that I can ship the phone to and have them reflash the phone and I will pay them.
I am a total non computer literate person who likes privacy and security but am just not very tech savvy.
You folks here on this forum give me a lot of hope though.

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@j8m2p6f, when above command output works for you as it should (when your Librem 5 connected … as described), please rethink (take your time) and implement what your host computer needs for successful reflash of …. At least take a look at following approach: External battery charger for Librem5 or take another recommended one, yet preparation of your own Linux host computer, for any upcoming task (ensuring preinstalled packages support your intended work) is everything (although even WindowsOS, for example, uuu approach should work too).

EDIT: Below links might be of some help there:
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/libusb-1.0-0
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/libzip4
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/libbz2-1.0
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/pkg-config
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/uuu

I get ls -ahl to tell me this:

ml@lib14:/media/ml/283a4739-85fc-44b7-8ee0-e0e4c328ab42$ ls -alh
total 395M
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 2.0K Jan 25 16:40 .
drwxr-x---+ 3 root root 4.0K Feb  1 11:35 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2.3K Jan 25 16:39 boot.scr
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2.3K Dec  4 16:36 boot.scr.bak
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 185K Apr 13  2022 config-5.16.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 187K May 24  2022 config-5.17.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 190K Jul 14  2022 config-5.18.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 194K Nov 15 16:16 config-6.0.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 196K Jan 10 14:21 config-6.1.0-1-librem5
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   52 Jan 25 16:39 dtb -> dtbs/6.1.0-1-librem5/freescale/imx8mq-librem5-r4.dtb
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   53 Apr 25  2022 dtb-5.16.0-1-librem5 -> dtbs/5.16.0-1-librem5/freescale/imx8mq-librem5-r4.dtb
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   53 Jun  1  2022 dtb-5.17.0-1-librem5 -> dtbs/5.17.0-1-librem5/freescale/imx8mq-librem5-r4.dtb
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   53 Sep 18 15:19 dtb-5.18.0-1-librem5 -> dtbs/5.18.0-1-librem5/freescale/imx8mq-librem5-r4.dtb
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   52 Dec  4 16:36 dtb-6.0.0-1-librem5 -> dtbs/6.0.0-1-librem5/freescale/imx8mq-librem5-r4.dtb
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   52 Jan 25 16:39 dtb-6.1.0-1-librem5 -> dtbs/6.1.0-1-librem5/freescale/imx8mq-librem5-r4.dtb
drwxr-xr-x  9 root root 1.0K Jan 14 17:21 dtbs
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 1.0K Jul 13  2021 grub
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  63M Apr 25  2022 initrd.img-5.16.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  63M Jun  1  2022 initrd.img-5.17.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  63M Sep 18 15:19 initrd.img-5.18.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  63M Dec  4 16:36 initrd.img-6.0.0-1-librem5
drwx------  2 root root  12K Sep 11  2021 lost+found
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4.8M Apr 13  2022 System.map-5.16.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4.8M May 24  2022 System.map-5.17.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4.8M Jul 14  2022 System.map-5.18.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4.9M Nov 15 16:16 System.map-6.0.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.9M Jan 10 14:21 System.map-6.1.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  24M Apr 13  2022 vmlinuz-5.16.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  24M May 24  2022 vmlinuz-5.17.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  24M Jul 14  2022 vmlinuz-5.18.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  25M Nov 15 16:16 vmlinuz-6.0.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  24M Jan 10 14:21 vmlinuz-6.1.0-1-librem5
ml@lib14:/media/ml/283a4739-85fc-44b7-8ee0-e0e4c328ab42$ 

It seems that the initrd for image 6.1.0-1 is missing, which would explain that my phone does not boot.

Then df -h shows me this:

ml@lib14:/media/ml/283a4739-85fc-44b7-8ee0-e0e4c328ab42$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev             16G     0   16G   0% /dev
tmpfs           3.2G  2.7M  3.2G   1% /run
/dev/nvme0n1p1  458G  183G  252G  43% /
tmpfs            16G  572M   16G   4% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M   12K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
encfs           458G  183G  252G  43% /home/ml/work
encfs           458G  183G  252G  43% /home/ml/devel
encfs           458G  183G  252G  43% /home/ml/personal
encfs           458G  183G  252G  43% /home/ml/.ssh/priv
ml@lind.a330:   288G   18G  256G   7% /home/ml/mnt/a330r/ml
ml@lind.i7:     908G   42G  821G   5% /home/ml/mnt/i7r/ml
ml@i7:          908G   42G  821G   5% /home/ml/mnt/i7l/ml
ml@a330:        288G   18G  256G   7% /home/ml/mnt/a330l/ml
tmpfs           3.2G  4.9M  3.2G   1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdb1       449M  396M   30M  94% /media/ml/283a4739-85fc-44b7-8ee0-e0e4c328ab42
ml@lib14:/media/ml/283a4739-85fc-44b7-8ee0-e0e4c328ab42$ ls -alh

There is 30 MB left on the boot partition, and given that an initrd takes up 63 MB, this explains why the latest initrd was not installed.

So, to quote Marillion (Clutching at Straws, White Russian): “Where do we go from here?”

Can I manipulate some file to get it to boot 6.0.0-1, so that I can clean out old images to make room on the boot partition?

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It might be best to contact support directly and they can walk you through the exact procedure. Otherwise you aren’t the first person to have this specific problem so maybe someone has listed the exact procedure in another topic.

I followed this one, linking to initrd.img and vmlinuz for 6.0.0 and it booted. Now I can clean out old images and update. Hurrah!

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The package manager does not purge outdated kernel images, the initrds of which crop up in /boot. And it does not prevent trying to install a new image, failing to install the initrd, thus leaving the phone in an unbootable state. Remember to regularly purge old images! This can not be done from the PureOS Store, only from the commandline. (This may be an issue for ordinary lusers.)

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I always run before sudo apt full-upgrade and after it the check

df -kh /boot

which shows around 240 Mbytes.

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so this issue is solved for you?

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Yes. No problem after that. apt purged the old images, then full-ugraded, and back in business.

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did you ever reflashed your librem 5 since you received it? And if you did, when was that, more or less?

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No, never reflashed.

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thanks for that information. You already removed kernels 5.16 and 5.17 correct?

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I removed those images as part of the above process. I never manually removed any kernels hitherto.

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I suspect that one of the kernels possibly 5.16 was marked as manually installed. When a package is marked as manually installed in APT, it does not get autoremoved.

Yes, this is an issue.

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I think that 5.16 was manually installed, while 5.17 was automatic and not autoremoved. So some dependency or recommendation is a bit conservative.

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5.17 would only have been removed after two days as far as I know. In normal conditons when there is a kernel update, the older kernels are only autoremoved after two days, so while the normal is to have 3 kernels (unless it is freshly installed), there is a period of two days in which you have 4 kernels in /boot.

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Ah, nice to know. I have always wondered and could not figure the rule from the behaviour :slight_smile:

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Hello I sent you an email about this.

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I’ll check it out. Thanks kind Sir

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I didn’t get anything. To what email address did you send it to? Nothing in spam folder either