Servo Tuning A axis

I'm in the process of adding a 4th axis to a working mill config. It's been a couple of years since my last tuning efforts so I'm a bit rusty.
I know I have some angular parameter/units misconfigured as I get joint 3 following errors. I may even be missing something in the hal and ini as I hand edited the files to include the A. I may upload these later.
In the past I was able to use the axis calibration window to make adjustments without following errors interfering. I'm on 2.8 on this machine and I can't tune as the joint 3 following errors keep shutting down the drives.
I forget, do I need to comment out the control loop in the hal file to make tuning possible in addition to opening the following error values in the ini? 
BTW, the servo drive is working okay, the feedback loop is okay, encoder counts are correct to the 7i77 and I can jog +/- but can't get tuning started with following errors. 

Last, are there any power or noise concerns in running the encoder connections from the servo motor (A, A/, B B/, I I/)  to the 7i77 then splitting off only the A and B channels back to the velocity encoder input on the drive? Ground is shared, +5v comes from the 7i77 (external)  and is not connected at the drive. Using shielded, twisted pairs with grounded drains.

You probably need to widen the following error limits in your ini file for tuning

If the encoder seems to count correctly, there are probably no major noise issues

Thanks PCW, I'll give that a try first.