Good to hear and I am surprised the auto configure works. That does tell me that the product is doing a good job at bridging Ethernet to Serial and doing it without any significant "gaps" in the data stream.
Also, I wouldn't be embarrassed because you are correct, not all serial cables are created equal and you'd be surprised what some manufactures will do with the RS232 "standard". Having said that, when I look at their website, I noticed (now that you mentioned that the cable fixed the issue) that the device has a male DB9 connection as does a SLC. 9 times out of 10 that is going to mean you need a null cable which a serial cable that has the same gender on both ends usually is. However, the female to female cable they have on their website is a straight through cable so if that’s the one you ordered then that’s why it didn’t work (a few assumptions here). The cable that came with the device (clearly) is a Null cable (again, a few assumptions) which is what I would expect.
For those who don’t know a lot about serial ports, there are two types of RS232 ports (outside of different handshaking line configurations), DTE (Data Terminal Equipment) and DCE (Data Communications Equipment). DTE (if you use the standard and a db9 connector) uses a male connector and pin 2 is transmit and pin 3 is receive. DCE uses a female connector and pin 2 is receive and pin 3 is transmit (pin 5 is signal ground). That way a straight through cable, which should have a male connector on one and a female on the other, will connect pins 2 to 2 (DTE transmit to DCE receive) and 3 to 3 (you get the idea). So, if you have two DTE devices (or two DCE devices) then you need a cable or Null adaptor that crosses pins 2 and 3 and has either two male or female connectors. Having said all of that, the RS232 standard gets corrupted frequently so just because you have a device that is a communications device, or a terminal device does not always mean it will have the correct type of port on it. The same thing can be said about the gender of the port so sometimes you just have to “test” it or get a breakout box (or inline device) that uses LED’s to indicate what state the pins are at (high, off or low).
Anyway, sorry to highjack your thread but I figured it was a good opportunity to pass along some information that is not the norm anymore. Again, good to hear its working.