Sigh. Well as gremlins go, I can not reproduce this now for some reason. Nothing has changed . I only put my display to sleep and came back to the same setup.
Today: The V2.2 board on the test bench was still doing the same as I last left it, “Font direSQUEEEEE” when powered up by either USB or battery when no SD card inserted.
I re-uploaded with 4.6 plugin and now it’s fine.
I tried 2 other boards, one installed , one loose. all seem fine now.
Arduino 1.8.19 the whole time.
Tried both Serial only as well as Serial + Mass Storage. No difference, still fine now.
DOSFS: SPI
Optimize: Smallest Code
Periphereal Clock: Half
No idea.