is it possible the vehicle module is falling asleep? or low vehicle battery.? just a thought

I agree. This chassis uses step up diagnostic voltage. Try putting a charger on low level to maintain voltage.

Coyote

OK, the car is back in the shop....

the battery is good and hot, I even have a small trickle charger on it to be sure. I just did a download of software from the site and then re-doped the Launch with current version as well as one older version. Still same problem, that is to say, runs the short test and hangs and locks up Launch somewhere about the 4 or 5 th module into it. My immediate need is to scan the Air Bag so I went to Control Units/ Body/ AB. It will read the control until id, and it will clear the faults, but every time I try to read the faults, I get the old "check connector to see if its plugged in correctly and be sure the key is on" error.
I am wondering, does any one know an "foolproof" been there, done that, older software version I could download to scan the Airbag on this car.
And of course, you're two cents as to whether the AB is indeed the correct module for the airbag on this beast ( of course I am assuming it is, since I CAN read out and print the contoller ID)

Here is the contoller ID for the Airbag in the event it helps 
Control unit AB
MB # 0008208126
Supplier MBB
Hardware status 50/92
Software status 10/93
Diagnosis ident 0/00

OK for the record, I loaded an ooooold version 32 and tried to acccess the AirBag AB module and same result....I can read ID # and can indeed read Data (although all data parameters read "F"), but still can not read faults. Now at to how the car turned out: We replaced the Clock Spring and the SRS light is no longer on. So morale of the story: a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess) worked, but no help due to the Launch. I truly believe this is a Launch issue and not a car issue in that the car is now %100 fixed, but the scanner is still unable to read faults.

HOLD THE PRESSES....late breaking news...because I just had to try one more thing, and I stumbled upon a fix: I loaded version 32, and ran a short test, it finally went cradle to grave (no other version would do this, always hung about half-way), and then once all the modules were scanned, I then went to the AB in the short test list and clicked on it, asked it to read faults, and VIOLA! it read out: No Faults detected. So the official "workaround" is to 1. load version 32 2. run short test 3. then find and enter the AB and read out faults. Whew, the Launch must be first cousins to the Rubic's Cube.

is it possible the bad clock spring messed with the tool's thought process?....even though it was suppposed to read the info with the bad part installed

You are not quite finished. Log onto the site and post under award complaint center exactly what happened. This is the only way to get the bug fixed.

Best wishes,

Coyote

Ok, will do that this weekend !

I will be in your part of the world next week. I'll stop in and say Hi.

Coyote