A few days ago, my n900 got stuck in a reboot loop and I sent it to a shop to repair. It came back and was working fine and I installed several apps through Faster Application Manager. It said there were unmet dependencies or something and many apps didn't work. I deleted those that didn't and reinstalled them using the default app manager. It kept saying the apps were not installed ("enable to install..."), although they were still working fine. I tried using apt-get -f instal to fix dependencies and also apt-get autoremove because I didn't have much space in rootfs.X terminal kept saying the operation was halted because there were too many errors. So, I deleted all my apps (but the NITDroid autoinstaller did not get removed, neither did the PR 1.2 multiboot). I also deleted the theme that was in use at the time. I changed the theme and only left the default apps (ap installer, foreca) on my n900 and rebooted it. Now, it turns on, goes to the multiboot menu (where I press 1 for Maemo - I haven't installed NITDroid yet) and it goes to the moving dots, and eventually to the desktop, where it stays for a few minutes, before rebooting. Pressing 'u' when turning it on does not putting in flashing mode. Any "useful" help would be greatly appreciated, if you're not asleep by the time you're halfway through it.

P.S. When the desktop comes, it still has the wallpaper from the old theme, but the icons are from the default theme.

Only thing I can think of is to try and remove Multiboot, I had problems going into flash mode and removing multiboot completely fixed it. Then I reflashed.

How do I remove multiboot?

I removed the power kernel and it was taken with it. That was a way earlier version and I can't guarantee it'll work now.

I cant access the app manager. It shuts down as soon as it gets to the desktop.

It sounds to me like you need to do a full flash and that the shop you took it to did a partial one.

Personal experience--YMMV--when I bought my N900 I knew pr1.3 was coming quick so I didn't install a zillion apps on it, nor mess with the power kernel, etc. When it did come out, I flashed everything--both the kernel and the eMMC--and did not have a single problem, unlike many people who did the OTA update. Being a computer guy (mostly Linux and some winblows), I know what kind of dependency nightmares show up during major updates as do people more knowledgeable than me, which is why my x86 distro of choice--Slackware--has always recommended a clean install for a full version update rather than an incremental one unless you're running "current" (equivalent of Extras-Testing on Maemo).

Bottom line is that, at this point, I think you should try starting from scratch to make sure this isn't a hardware problem. Follow the instructions in http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_firmware for both rootfs and eMMC--try to back up anything you want to save because this will nuke EVERYTHING like a low-level format on a PC--and then, if everything is working again, slowly re-install the things you want.

Hope this helps, Mike

Thanks for all your advice. I'm a noob but I understood most of it. My problem is that I can't put it in flash mode because when I turn it on while holding the u key, it goes into the multiboot menu

Maybe if you don't fully slide out the keyboard.
Slide it open just far enough to press the 'u' key.

This way multiboot doesn't/shouldn't kick in.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, it did help. My n900 is alive again!!!

Glad to be at service :-)