Magtag won't enter boot loader mode

[3rdbyrd]

My Adabox 017 ragtag is stuck with: boot_out.txt= "Adafruit CircuitPython 6.1.0-beta.1 on 2020-11-20; MagTag with ESP32S2"
It won't enter boot mode, even when using the {boot_reset_release boot} sequence. I pulled the battery out, which I found on a forum entry. I'm on a Mac (OS 12.01 Monterey). I tried on an older Mac (running OS 10.14 Mojave) with no joy there either.
It had been working fine but I was trying to update Circuit Python to version 7.10 to set up the holiday wreath project, and it didn't like the neopixel.mpy file, which was 7.1. I don't know what happened, would like to understand where I went wrong.

[danhalbert]

To be clear, you are doing the following:
1. press and hold boot button
2. press and release reset
3. release boot button

You should feel a click when pressing either button. Does it seem like they are working properly?

That should put the MagTag in hardware bootloader mode. It will not show as a drive. Read these three sections in the MagTag guide about (re)installing the UF2 bootloader and replacing CircuitPython:

ROM Bootloader: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-mag ... bootloader
Web Serial ESPTool: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-mag ... al-esptool
Install UF2 Bootloader: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-mag ... bootloader