M4 config corrupt and now password protection active

[MikeD]

Hi MoTeC team and members,
while reconfiguring an
*) M4 with FW 6.20.
*) serial #6xxx so no special PCI cable needed)
*) with legit FTDI serial-USB adapter
*) using DOS Box (laptop on WIN 7 64 bit and used with this adapter on different ecus before)
I ran into a terrible situation -> most likely something on the communication side went wrong during the config write process and using a different laptop afterwards it seems that the software thinks there is password protection active...maybe someone has a hint.

Here is the long story (as good as I can remember the steps):
When working live within the ecu then during the write process something went wrong (maybe some issue with USB serial adapter and/or DOS Box), because after the write process a red warning popped up pointing to some checksum error IIRC. There was an option to try and write again which I did, but sadly it did not work on the second and third attempt either.

I'm not 100% sure about the exact next steps which I did but think that I canceled this attempt and exited from the ecu config section, and tried to access the ECU once again, but sadly now the ecu wasn't recognized at all (the software did not find the ecu anymore).

At that point I organized another old laptop with native serial port and WIN XP operating system, which is known to work in general with those old ecus. When trying to access the ecu now with this laptop the ECU was recognized once again by the software (ecu FW 6.20 shown in the upper right corner of the software) but when I tried to access the ecu this software asked for a password for read and write actions.

So it seems that when something went wrong during the write process then the password protection accidentally kicked in, at least I didn't set a password by intention and there was none on the ecu up to that point.

So the main questions are:
*) Is this issue something which has happened to anybody before?
*) Any ideas which I can try other than returning the ecu for an unlock?
*) In case the ecu needs to be unlocked by a MoTeC dealer, is this something any dealer can do locally at their shop or does the ecu need to be physically shipped to Motec UK or Motec AUS?

Side note: I have the config on my laptop which was in use during the session where something went wrong, and I can NOT even open this file in offline mode, because the ECU manager software tells me that something is wrong with the config. Therefore in case this helps in whatever way if someone would decompile this file (any maybe find the accidentally messed up password) then this would be great.

Any help would be greatly appreciated in this sad situation.
Thanks!
BR,
Mike