That was part of my issue from the very beginning. I've used the 18F4550 for a number of projects and in all of them I used the ICSP. I've never had a problem. With these demo boards the erase always fails. I had to go into options -> more options -> erase -> and uncheck configuration/user ID and calibration. It still erases because when I hit the erase the program is wiped clean but I don't know what these two settings do.

You think this is my issue? I don't understand how the ICPRT setting affects the 18F powering up.