Oh, so your problem is with MPLABX. Welcome to the club.

It's not the ICD3 that's crap, it's MPLABX. I've had problems with all the tools in every version of MPLABX.
Some versions are better than others. I've had the least issues with the earlier V3.xx releases, but V4.xx is basically unusable for me.

I try and use MPLAB 8.92 whenever I can.