Indeed I think the recovery boot is being activated. I suspect the issue may be network-related, since the recovery partition actually downloads the system either from the internet or from a USB stick (this allows us to ‘update the updater’ in a failsafe way).  You may need to enable internet sharing on your Mac for the H9000 to see this.  If that fails, you can try making a USB installer through these instructions:

https://www.eventideaudio.com/support/downloads/usb-installer-h9000

With the USB installer plugged in, doing the pinhole key boot should allow you to boot into recovery mode with no internet connection.

Great info….thank you!