im suprised as im pretty sure its the same method that winflash uses to connect. any research on your end with serial sniffing or whatever would be appreciated as i have no time to spend on this anymore. i am 20+ hours into this one part of the project. it works 100% perfectly on my bench as usual

that alternate connection setting no longer works

are you sure if you keep trying that eventually it wont connect? it should fluke out eventually.