HOOORRAAAYYY.
You got it. This was the problem. Well - me was the problem, as ever.
I followed a recommendation of a in fact competent fellow. For some reason that hint was wrong - and I did not carefully swap back to the proven commands.
Anyway - it’s working now - on my own machine and the VM. Halelujah!
And again - @edbo - you saved my life. (close to anyway…)
Cheers,
Wolf