Problem solved: grub screws on the x stepper motor axis were loose
I took out the x stepper motor to see if i can see anything wrong with it, since I had never seen a stepper die on me in my life. sure, there is a first for anything, but highly unlikely. it was a bit embarrassing to see that it is (like so often) a user error where the grub screws either came loose or weren’t fastened by the user (me).
Thank to William to nudge me in the right direction.