I'm trying to migrate a program to a new small chip I have never used before. I have had multiple problems with it and am beginning to suspect there might be some sort of problem with the MPASM include file or the something else under the hood that I'm not familiar enough to figure out on my own.

I have stripped the program down to the basics. I verify a heartbeat at the beginning with an LED then I made a main loop to basically do nothing with an x = 0 goto main loop. When I do this, there is about a 2-3 second pause after the heartbeat and then the program seems to time out and restart. I assume the watchdog is being triggered. It goes on forever this way. ran a faster heartbeat within the mainloop and it worked as expected. I After a lot of random trial and error I found that if I added a pauseus 1 command it would stop resetting. I didn't really want to add this statement, but could live with it. The program below is one step above that where I'm trying to monitor 1 pin and mimic the state on another pin and no matter what I do the read always acts as if the pin is low. I've used a volt meter to verify changes in hardware and have tested on multiple boards and am not having any luck. I triple checked my schematic pin outs match the data sheet. If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it


Code:
 DEFINE OSC 32
'no changes made to any config settings so far 6-26-2020		
#CONFIG
    __config _CONFIG1, _FEXTOSC_OFF & _RSTOSC_HFINT32 & _CLKOUTEN_OFF & _CSWEN_ON & _FCMEN_ON
    __config _CONFIG2, _MCLRE_ON & _PWRTE_ON & _LPBOREN_OFF & _BOREN_ON & _BORV_LO & _ZCD_OFF & _PPS1WAY_OFF & _STVREN_ON
    __config _CONFIG3, _WDTCPS_WDTCPS_11 & _WDTE_ON & _WDTCWS_WDTCWS_6 & _WDTCCS_HFINTOSC
    __config _CONFIG4, _BBSIZE_BB512 & _BBEN_OFF & _SAFEN_OFF & _WRTAPP_OFF & _WRTB_OFF & _WRTC_OFF & _WRTSAF_OFF & _LVP_OFF
    __config _CONFIG5, _CP_OFF
#ENDCONFIG

TRISA = %1111010      		'output on 0,2.  input on remainder

OUT_SIG		var	LATA.0     'PORTA.0		'output to input chip
CL_LED		var	LATA.2     'PORTA.2   	'blink LED when current loop changes
RS_SIG		var	PORTA.1		'232 and 422 combined signal
CLOOP		VAR	PORTA.5		'current loop

X			var	byte


'heartbeat
for x = 0 to 1
CL_LED = 0
pause 500
CL_LED = 1
pause 500
next x

Mainloop:
 
pauseus 1
CL_LED = RS_SIG

goto mainloop
end