I installed the Line 6 Monkey, and I attached the USB cable to my laptop running Windows 7, (a nice newer HP laptop i7 Pentium)

I also installed the Line 6 Licence Manager 1.02 and verified all is good.

When you fire up the Line 6 Monkey witht he USB cable attached to the PC, it doesn't provide for the option to choose the Spider IV 150 fromt he drop-down menu.. (which I find to be rediculous by the way)

So then the only option left to me is to tell the Line 6 Monkey my config is with Windows 7 andI tell it I have a MIDI connection.

This makes no sense to me at all... It really has me upset..

Before you say to check your cables, I already did, and in fact I used a second set of known to be good cables for both the USB from the FSB to the laptop, and the RJ45 to the amp.

I could run the RJ45 directly from the PC to the Spider IV amp... not sure if that is smart or not... and they sure don't make things clear in the docs, or the (blank) website (see below)

But anyway- here I am , trying to make sense of this. I need your help.

Line 6 Monkey then gives options for input and output for MIDI control.

I really have no other option but to pick MIDI control, even though I'm running a USB connection from my laptop to the FBV board.

Pick options:

(1) It shows Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth for Midi Out -

(2) or you can choose to set MIDI out to be FBV Shortboard MK II (and I have tried both)

WHICH DO I PICK?

(3) It then asks for MIDI in, and the only option it had was MBV Shortboard MK II... which makes sense.

(4) It asks for the device, which in my case is the Spider IV 150... and I picked that, of course...

NOW- when I run the MIDI update program.. under MIDI control: (with my USB cable still attached to my PC, (and the interconnect RJ45 cable running from my FBV Shortboard MK II to my amp..., and choosing FSB in/out and Spider IV device,)

From here I finally get the opportunity to pick the Spider IV amp. I run the program and-

It seems to check the updates for the FBV Shortboard MK II ROM just fine but it then when it says "now we'll update your Spider IV amp" it gives me an error code of "Failed to connect to Line 6 device"

" If you are sure that your MIDI out is connected to the MIDI Input of the correct device, you may proceed without verification using your selected MIDI ports"

"Otherwise press cancell to try again"

gee. thanks...

At this point I FINALLY get to a screen where I can update the Flash memory on the Spider IV, but what I really wanted to do is check my FBV Shortboard FIRST.

So I run the "Change device" option to attempt to locate and pick the FBV option..

I get to the screen and I can actually download the FBV program.

(yay- something actually works) but when I download it it crashes the system... (of course it does) and so I have to get out of the Line 6 Monkey and run the EXE file manually.

So I can run the FBV control software now... it looks to be OK so far.

I then ran the Spider IV spider Edit dowload, and it seems to be OK.

If I try to locate my Spider IV option now to upgrade the ROM it can't find it... and if I try to connect via MIDI it gives me a 80000000 error, asks me to check the cables and try again.

Because I'm using a USB connection from the Laptop to the FSB board with has the RJ45 running to the Line 6 Amp... maybe that's the issue.

I could run the Spider 6 Monkey with my PC RJ-45 port cabled directly to the Spider 4 amp... but who knows...

Your YouTube "Knowedgebase" sucks... it's like the worst I have ever seen.

IE: it would be nice if your "videos" didn't show a blank screen with just audio and no video to help me.

http://line6.com/support/docs/DOC-2184

Or maybe the audio could be something other than set to 1 on a scale of 100:

http://line6.com/support/docs/DOC-2081

I firmly believe that Line 6 should have a dedicated support line rather than my needing to submit a plea for help online.

It doesn't reflect well on Line 6 customer service, or their dedication to the customer.