Documentation for accessing the recovery partition doesn't work

[dkincaid]

I've had multiple system76 machines with pop-os factory installed. None of them work to access the systemd-boot menu as described on the pop-recovery.md document. I have never actually been able to boot one of them into this mode since I don't know the secret key combo.

[leviport]

Which machines? Holding the space bar while the machine boots should do the trick for pretty much everything.

[dkincaid]

Oryx Pro laptop, Gazelle laptop and my latest machine is a Mira desktop. Same thing on all of them.

[jacobgkau]

On laptops with Open Firmware, it should actually be any key other than Esc that starts the systemd-boot menu, as the article mentions. The spacebar is used as the example since firmware usually doesn't intercept that key for its own menus (and never does on System76 hardware.)

Are you pressing the spacebar down before or after pushing the power button? On the laptops, try waiting until you see the help text appear at the bottom of the screen (Press ESC for Boot Options/Settings, or SPACE for Pop!_OS Recoery), then press and release immediately.

Does the command sudo cat /boot/efi/loader/loader.conf output default Pop_OS-current? Do you see a recovery option present in the output of sudo ls -alh /boot/efi/loader/entries?

The documentation is correct and working in general; remember that as a customer, you're able to submit support tickets so the dedicated support team can help figure things like this out.