EndlessLoop (post boot)

[Grizzly]

Hi All

Has anyone seen (cured) this

One of my (multi booted) OS's is ElementryOS 8.0 (maybe 8.0.2), I updated the 
underling Ubuntu 24.04.3 with my usual 

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt full-upgrade

a while ago and didnt reboot at the time

when I boot again later all "seemed" to go well as far the (just) wallpaper at 
that point it was crisp and clear, then 

it dropped to a black screen with static curser (topleft)

not very unusal I've seen it a few times during normal bootup (on 18.04 thru 
25.04 & Elementry 6.xx & 8.00)

it then came back "fuzzy" (still just wallpaper)
then
it dropped back to a black screen with static curser (topleft)
carried on like that for 10-15 minutes

while the fuzzy wallpaper was showing I did

Ctrl-Alt-F2
got a terminal

$shutdown now -r

on reboot I went fo advanced options 
recovery
enabled network
fix broken packages
[~5 hours and 960Mb later, slow conection]
I went for resume
all went well(ish)
default wallpaper, all default icons, all working (change nothing)
open a terminal

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt full-upgrade

all "up-to-date"

$ shutdown now -r

on reboot the cycle started all over again

while the fuzzy wallpaper was showing I did

Ctrl-Alt-F2
got a terminal

$ sudo rm -rf .config
$ shutdown now -r

no change

any ideas please (or) if ElementryOS is too far from plain Unity Ubuntu a list 
that may have help

Grizz