Libra 2 won't update properly after reimaging sd card

[Old_Guy]

Thanks to this forum I was able to unbrick my wife's libra2 by reimaging a new SD card.
The device seems to work properly EXCEPT it gets stuck in an update loop if I connect to wifi. I can connect to pc to sync and it loads up books and acts like it gets an update but the SW revision level never changes (stuck at 4.32 from 4/14/22)

I've manually kicked an update file over to the .kobo directory as per kobo instructions - no change.
Also as last ditch I replaced the 3 directories with the original files from the old questionable SD card but no change.

Other weirdness is the SN is Nooooooooooooooooooooo and it always forgets the WIFI password.

It kinda works ok but if I try to sync by wifi it tries to grab an update and then gets loop stuck and never gets the book.

any thoughts?

thanks