Home assistant os stuck preparing on rpi compute 4

Trying to boot from emmc on a RPI with waveshare base board B, gets to the point of preparing but no further. Ive just re-flashed with RPI OS and it boots perfectly.

Error messages indicate DNS issues, and that supervisor cannot connect to internet. (Though the web interfaces are loading fine). Oddly,IP scanner is reporting home assistant at an address outside the DHCP range, in addition to the IP that works for http access.

any suggestions?

on the third reflash, it just started.
nothing different.
go-figure.