thanks all, thought I was going mad (wondering what or how I broke things)
note, I had the same problem when I created a Gmoccapy GUI first with the config, then created an axis and a at dragon screenset with the same Pncconf. file just changing the GUI
I then formatted the drive and put a new lcnc install from buster iso 2.8, upgraded to master via buildbot.
created a new Pncconf with axis first (as axis always worked fine previous) and it was unresponsive too..... then went investigating the hal / ini file settings and found the 100 .... changed it to 0.010 and everything worked fine creating axis, Gmoccapy guis
glad I was able to help as I'm sure it may have confused others.
+ glad someone was able to work out what I was waffling on about and work out the potential problems / where the issue was.