My serial data errors all went away as soon as I started presetting the data line before transmission.

For example, RS-232 defines the IDLE or MARK state to be negative volts at the RS-232 connector. That means positive volts at the PIC before the MAX232 inverter.

Try something like

HIGH TxData
pause 2
Serout/Serout2/Hserout your message.

It works for me.

HTH
BrianT