Stuck at login screen after boot

Hi,

It's been a few weeks so I might not have all the steps recall-able. I have a 2013 era MacBook Pro (the thick one) i7. Been running OCLP for a while now. Wanted to update to Sequoia. Update seemed to go fine but now it's stuck at the login screen. Mouse doesn't move, no response. Tried Safe Mode, no luck. It won't do that. If I hold down the Shift key during reboot and it will just get about half way and restart. Tried Shift-Return, didn't get anywhere. Tried external keyboard and mouse. No luck.

I suspect it needs the OCLP root modifications done but I can't get it to boot to do that.

Any idea on how to get past this? thanks.