OP

Quoted from VolunteerPin:

****SOLVED****
Had some time this morning to do more troubleshooting and I now have a fully functioning pin!
So, I switched out node boards 8 and 9 (same board, just different pins) and I had the same effect: node board 9 still not initializing but node 8 was fine. This was critical information to know that my actual board was fine. Thus it had to be a communication error.
So, I simply reseated all the ethernet cords I could find, including the backbox. Lo and behold, simply reseating the ethernet cables solved the node board 9 issue and it initialized without a hitch.
So, for posterity's sake I would recommend the following steps when troubleshooting widespread errors on a spike system:
1. In the menu under diagnostics, make sure all node boards are working properly.
2. If you have a board/boards not initialized, then FIRST reseat all ethernet cables! (Had I done that step first, it would have saved me a few hours of headache and I would not have had to pull a game from location.
3. If that doesn't work, switch out node boards if possible with another board on your pin (I'm guessing that like my GBLE, spike games use the same board at a couple of different node locations). If the actual board is bad game behavior will change and diagnostics will show a difference in what node location is not initialized.
Anyhow, take home message is first reseat all ethernet cables when starting to diagnose possible node board issue!

OP

Quoted from VolunteerPin:

****SOLVED****
Had some time this morning to do more troubleshooting and I now have a fully functioning pin!
So, I switched out node boards 8 and 9 (same board, just different pins) and I had the same effect: node board 9 still not initializing but node 8 was fine. This was critical information to know that my actual board was fine. Thus it had to be a communication error.
So, I simply reseated all the ethernet cords I could find, including the backbox. Lo and behold, simply reseating the ethernet cables solved the node board 9 issue and it initialized without a hitch.
So, for posterity's sake I would recommend the following steps when troubleshooting widespread errors on a spike system:
1. In the menu under diagnostics, make sure all node boards are working properly.
2. If you have a board/boards not initialized, then FIRST reseat all ethernet cables! (Had I done that step first, it would have saved me a few hours of headache and I would not have had to pull a game from location.
3. If that doesn't work, switch out node boards if possible with another board on your pin (I'm guessing that like my GBLE, spike games use the same board at a couple of different node locations). If the actual board is bad game behavior will change and diagnostics will show a difference in what node location is not initialized.
Anyhow, take home message is first reseat all ethernet cables when starting to diagnose possible node board issue!