This is not a question per se, but wanted to let others know in case you are struggling with the same issue.

I had a firmware update go bad on the S1; really bad. To the point that the XCS software could not see the laser on the USB port anymore. I tried all the step from the various support documents on the website and it just kept failing. After dozens of restarts and reboots, cleaning out the cache files, even rolling back to the “stable” version of XCS software, I threw in the towel. As I was shutting things down, on a whim really, I pulled out the USB security dongle on the back of the machine and tried it again. Kaboom!! It completed and the machine came to life. If this is a necessary step I sure do not remember seeing it anywhere in the documentation, but it did the trick for me, today. Hope it helps someone else.