Newbie Please Help! Error on Compass calibration NO GPS depending on software version

I’m trying out a clone Arducopter 2.8 Board.
Have a Ublox (3DR Clone) external GPS and compass in one module.

I have removed the internal compass jumper to disable the internal compass and set up the board to use external
compass.

I have flashed Arducopter 3.2.1 onto the 2.8 board configured for a Quad X.

This is the latest firmware compatible with 2.X boards.
Using the latest version of Mission Planner-

I was stuck for hours trying to do live compass calibration.
No matter what I do it comes back with this error: "setting new offsets for compass #1 failed. "

Google is not my friend nor is searching the forums to find an answer as to what this error actually means
and how do I deal with this?

On my own I was able to determine that If I try a really old version of Mission Planner (from over a year ago).
I can calibrate the compass without errors.

However GPS display does not work in the older version of Mission Planner…

Also similar story if I try the Latest version of APM Planner…
in APM Planner I can also calibrate the compass without any errors or problems.
But In APM planner I get no GPS fix indication or satellite count.
It just shows No GPS FIX forever.

But if I run the latest Mission Planner GPS works and displays great! ans shows number of satellites.
But I can’t calibrate the compass.

The is weird strange and confusing.

Am I doing anything wrong?

Compass seems to work just fine in Latest Mission planner just that I am unable to calibrate it.

So I may be able to just USE Mission Planner for all operations other than compass calibration.
And use APM planner (latest version) soley to calibrate the compass.

Seems weird and like I’m missing something.

This turned out to be a recent bug.
Had me really scratching my head.
And explains why the specific error wording was not turning up in any searches.

See: "setting new offsets for compass #1 failed"