cbmuse I wasn't able to reestablish it so rebooted my laptop as well as the Bela board but now I can't get the IDE to start

Did you have any program set to running on boot? When the board powers on, does it show the usual blinking lights? Can you see the BELABOOT partition from the host computer and/or do you see any of the virtual network interfaces to Bela on the host? If you are on mac or linux, post here the output of ifconfig in your terminal executed about 1minute after the board is connected. If on Windows, check the list of network interfaces and maybe post a screenshot here.

    No program set to running on boot. The usual lights are blinking and BELABOOT partition is on the
    desktop. Here's the ifconfig post:

    Christophers-MacBook-Pro:~ chrisbrown$ ifconfig
    lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
    options=1203<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TXSTATUS,SW_TIMESTAMP>
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
    stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
    XHC20: flags=0<> mtu 0
    en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether a4:5e:60:eb:4a:45
    inet6 fe80::43d:fecb:2e5c:70fa%en0 prefixlen 64 secured scopeid 0x5
    inet 192.168.4.23 netmask 0xfffffc00 broadcast 192.168.7.255
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active
    p2p0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2304
    ether 06:5e:60:eb:4a:45
    media: autoselect
    status: inactive
    awdl0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1484
    ether 7e:65:82:aa:83:ce
    inet6 fe80::7c65:82ff:feaa:83ce%awdl0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active
    en1: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 6a:00:02:97:c9:00
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
    en2: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 6a:00:02:97:c9:01
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
    bridge0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=63<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 6a:00:02:97:c9:00
    Configuration:
    id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
    maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
    root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
    ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en1 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
    ifmaxaddr 0 port 8 priority 0 path cost 0
    member: en2 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
    ifmaxaddr 0 port 9 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    media: <unknown type>
    status: inactive
    utun0: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 2000
    inet6 fe80::77af:c8e9:d132:60c6%utun0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xb
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    utun1: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1380
    inet6 fe80::af25:3d10:3a27:31cf%utun1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xc
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    utun2: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1380
    inet6 fe80::216b:16af:2f18:8103%utun2 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xd
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    utun3: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1380
    inet6 fe80::3c98:fa20:e3bd:32f2%utun3 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xe
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    en7: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether be:1a:25:3e:cb:a8
    inet6 fe80::ff:79cf:dc55:fe55%en7 prefixlen 64 secured scopeid 0xf
    inet 192.168.7.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.7.255
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
    media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
    status: active

      cbmuse en7: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
      ether be:1a:25:3e:cb:a8
      inet6 fe80::ff:79cf:dc55:fe55%en7 prefixlen 64 secured scopeid 0xf
      inet 192.168.7.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.7.255
      nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>
      media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
      status: active

      this is the Bela network, already with the correct IP address. Can you try again to connect to 192.168.7.2 in a browser? Failing that, try the following in the terminal:

      ping -c 5 192.168.7.2
ssh -o ConnectTimeout=3 root@192.168.7.2 exit

        If this works fine, let's see what went wrong, print the output of:

        ssh root@192.168.7.2 "ls && cat ~/update.log"

        unfortunately Bela image v0.3.8e (shipped between November 2021 and January 2022) shipped with a broken update procedure, so it may have missed the last mv step.

        I thought it worked, but still not able to reconnect even after rebooting Bela.
        There was a massive reply to ssh command ending with this:
        Creating directory structure on the board...done
        Generating on-board documentation...done
        Warning: this script will DELETE any existing IDE files from your board and install the IDE. Continue? (y/N) y
        Copying new IDE files to the board...using rsync...done
        Rebuilding node dependencies...done
        The IDE was correctly updated

        Setup complete.

        Core setup complete.

        SUCCESS=true
        Restoring directory structure...
        Kill the IDE
        Stopping currently running IDE...done

        Can you show the first line of the output? Namely, the output of

        ssh root@192.168.7.2 ls

          Oh and also

          ssh root@192.168.7.2 grep v0 /etc/motd

          so, try this:

          ssh root@192.168.7.2 mv _BelaUpdateBackup Bela

          then, download this, unzip it on your computer and run the program scripts/update_board.

          great, it's all back and working again -- thanks!

          while i've got you on the line, would you be able to describe what happened here and which of the steps that you gave me were essential for fixing it? my guess is: first you checked to make sure that the board was functioning enough to connect to the host correctly, next made sure that it wasn't a faulty startup program that I installed. Then you checked for the faulty update procedure -- was that the problem? I'm gessing the mv _BelaUpdateBackup Bela line is where you started to replace it? And then the update_board script replaced it?

          After the couple of sessions you've talked me thru, I'm feeling like the Bela environment is fairly fragile since I don't have much linux experience and was hoping that I could do my projects with my SuperCollider chops alone. So just trying to learn, and I'll save all your replies to help for the next time it might happen!

          Chris

            I think what happened is that the version of the core code that was on your board was one that had trouble updating and failed at the very last step of the update (when mv _BelaUpdateBackup Bela should happen). So the fix finished the update, and the board was probably ready as it was, but as a I was unsure about the state of the board, I let you run update_board again, just in case.

            cbmuse it wasn't a faulty startup program that I installed.

            a CPU-intensive startup program would slow down the loading of the IDE after boot.

            Hopefully the board won't have more problems going forward, unless I break something else. 😛