No Serial Connection after Hijack v253 patch

I've had my RioCar / empeg player for about 2 months and successfully flashed the unit with no problems over the serial port. I cannot seem to flash past my last update of Hijack v253. Both USB and Ethernet ports work fine, but the serial port seems to be down. I used the Empeg Logo Editor to load all of the hijack patches in the past, but now I get the following error msg:

found empeg unit: entering program mode, Error: Couldn't find product ID!

Not sure, but I think my last flash of hijack may have changed some setting that I needed to activate the serial port. I'm using WinXP.

Yes, I'm sure that both serial ports work on my computer - I can get bash prompts with my Cobalt Qube3 and TiVo.
Yes, I've rebooted both the empeg and computer.
Yes, I'me sure no other programs / devices are trying to use the serial ports at the same time.
No, I cannot get a bash prompt - nothing can talk to the empeg through the serial port now.

Can I revert to the base image using either the Ethernet or USB ports?

Thanks for you help
Rod

To be certain that Hijack is the cause, put the beta11 ".upgrade" file back on the player and see if all is well again.

Did you also try REMOVING THE POWER from the player, starting the flash, then APPLYING POWER when prompted?

Got it - Turned out to be a broken transmit pin on my serial cable.

Thanks

Ah, good, glad you found the problem.

I will say that the only times I've ever had serial troubles is when I had a frayed serial cable. Since that's the most obvious first-thing-to-check, I sometimes assume that it's already been ruled out by the time I see the question here. Either that, or I get one of those "it can't be the cable, it just worked yesterday" responses. (It's gotta fail sometime, right? )