CAN Jaguar: could longer CAN cables cause problems?

[AutoBotAM]

For the last couple days we've been struggling with getting our CAN Jaguar system up and running... We've wired these together plenty of times in the past, we're knowledgeable about the two net ports, and that the input goes into the one labeled "10101" (or something like that). We are using only black jaguars, and have them configured at 2,3,4,5.

The problem for one is that we can only barely access one of our Jaguars via code. BDC-COMM can access #3 and #5 directly (with it plugged directly to the laptop and the terminator on the other NET port). #2 didn't initially work directly and we haven't tried #4. Once we've expanded to other Jaguars (in "2-chain" configurations), we begin to face more issues. Connecting the two Jags together, some of our CAN wires have flat-out refused to run, while some of them are just unreliable, where #3 will appear for a moment and disappear when chained to #5. We've also replaced terminators and CAN-Serial cords without much change in behavior.

Over all we've been facing issues in getting a stable CAN network running. Our mentor Mr. Buchanan mentioned that one of the few things we've done differently this time is that we've been using longer CAN cables. I didn't have enough time to try the shorter cables, but have any of you guys experienced issues with the longer CAN cables? I could see how it would effect it, as a longer distance could cause signal degradation. What are your opinions?