@Aiph5u thanks for the reply, @OnefinityCNC got back to me on an email I sent, and it turns out “the machine may need a reset from time to time”!!!
sure enough, I followed the instructions on the link below and it was resolved immediately. Still bemused about how its OK for the machine to through hissy fits like this considering I left it the night before and everything was working great.
no harm done, great customer service, but as someone who typically only has some evenings and weekends to work on this I have just lost roughly 2 weeks, first with the buggy upgrade and now pretty much most of a Saturday, I wish the trouble shootings could take place prior to release of software updates and not be expected from the user to undergo this challenge, I surely did not go down the CNC route to be troubleshooting software bugs…