[BitTwiddler]

I'm not sure if we're experiencing the same problem or if the OP has a different problem but I might as well bring it up in this discussion since it is related to the OP's problem.
It seems like we experience the same problem about this time every year with the cRIO comms. It is now happening again and I'm at my wit's end trying to find the cause.
Up until now when we hit the run button (LabVIEW) in Robot Main the code would deploy to the cRIO with no drama (unless we leave the network cable off). Last night the programming team reports that now the deployment process stops at "waiting for robot target to respond" and stays there.
We can ping the robot from the programming laptop so our addresses are correct. The network interface indicators on the laptop and the cRIO are furiously flashing away which tells me that traffic is going over the network. We are directly wired to the cRIO from the laptop with no switches or other devices. We have tried different cables also.
Its like the network comms are good but for some reason the cRIO refuses to respond to the deployment commands.
The programmers tell me that they built and deployed code to the cRIO firmware last night which is when this problem started. They also tell me that if they re-image the cRIO then they can deploy the code successfully but only once. I had them re-image the cRIO but with the "run apps" switch turned off. After that we've been able to deploy the code with Run button occasionally but not consistently. It's like the cRIO is too busy to respond to code deployment for some reason.
Like I said earlier this problem seems to reoccur every year (we're using a new cRIO this year so it's not directly related to the cRIO itself). Its driving me nuts because we waste so much time waiting on failed deployments.
Does anybody have any insights into what might be going on?