V16 & Vega Control Head Firmware Update

[furious_farmer]

Hello,
Hopefully someone has had better luck with updating firmware and can suggest some ideas or point out a step I may be missing.
I would like to update the firmware for my V16 and Vega control head devices but it seems software cannot connect through the com port on the computer.
Here are the steps I have taken and observations:
- I have downloaded the firmware updater .exe from the website and followed the sequence of steps and when to apply power
- When I run MGLVegaControl.exe and I select the associated com port of the USB-serial device, I get an error pop up in the MGL program that the com port is unavailable. Multiple reboots and changing the number of the com port have not been successful.
- I have verified my USB-serial dongle can see serial data from the MGL hardware: I open up a serial terminal (via Putty) and see “OK” as first message upon VEGA device power-up, then the normal serial message broadcasts are written to the screen every second.
- Windows 10 device manager sees my usb-serial device on associated com port with no yellow exclamation mark; driver installed appears most recent
- I have attempted to run MGLVEGAControl.exe as administrator and windows compatibility mode and neither has had success either

As my computer can see the serial data from the hardware, I believe the issue lies somewhere that MGLVegaControl.exe cannot communicate with the comm port as the software does not see the hardware connected. I am unsure of next steps to take in troubleshooting.

Any advice or direction from the forum would be greatly appreciated.

[furious_farmer]

As a follow-up to anyone having troubles with firmware updates, I can share what finally worked in my case. YMMV

Update was successfully completed using a Win 10 laptop.
USB/RS232 device used for the update was an arduino UNO and external MAX3232 chip connected to the serial TX/RX of the Radios.
I used the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor to validate RS232 serial communication output.
Originally, Windows Device Manager assigned a high com port (COM11) to the USB/Serial dongle and the windows updater software could not connect to the V16 radio or VEGA head unit.
Through continued troubleshooting attempts, at some point the Onboard Bluetooth on the laptop no longer reserved COM3 for itself and it became available for assignment for the arduino board. When COM3 became available and was selected for serial communication, the update software had no issue connecting to the radios and completing the firmware update.

Solution might be specific to my system where a high com port (COM11) did not work, but a low com port (COM3) was successful.