Originally Posted by Doru

Same as above, stumbled on this by accident.

I had an instance, where the laptop would work very well on the e39 & e53, but it wouldn't recognize the e46 - none of the softwares: Gt1, INPA, Progman etc. Peake wasn't recognized either.
What worked in this case: disconnect battery cables from the car, touch both leads after battery was removed (+ & -), then reconnect battery. Laptop or Peake recognized the car, no more problems.
Sometimes a low voltage battery can corrupt the car's modules.

At a later date, I had a the 1-2 hard shifting on the e53. I knew I had the correct fluid level, etc - the tranny was serviced months prior, but this just happened out of the blue. Tried connecting the laptop to reset the tranny, the laptop would recognize the car, but did not recognize the tranny module, no matter what I did. Removed battery cables, touched both leads, reconnect, and then I was able to connect to the module and reset the tranny which since works flawlessly.

I also have the Romanian version.