PMs sent.
For the N236 Aura Edition 2 owners, I informed Kobo about a potential issue. The response was that they are aware of the issue and working on it.
I've written up a suggested recovery procedure for a Kobo N236 Aura Edition 2 that is stuck on the boot screen (3 dots). See:
Suggested recovery procedure. This may also work for other Kobo ereaders, after the first steps, follow the manual factory reset for that model.