CCSTUDIO-THEIA: MSP-EXP430FR2433 Backchannel UART(COM5) shows zero output

Is this your own board or a Launchpad?

Put a breakpoint in the interrupt routine and make sure you are getting there.

Put a scope on the RX and TX lines to make sure the signal is getting there.

I am using a Launchpad.

the issue is i can't really type anything in the serial console, nothing i type seems to reach the board.

i put a scope on TX using a different test program that sends the character "U" once per second on its own to have a predictable signal to look for. but i didn't really get a recognizable waveform. 

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does this point to anything specific i should check?

If your scope's grid scale is really 40usec you probably won't see much. Try the scale at maybe 1msec (one byte-time).

[Edit: Also, where is your scope probe attached? That might give a clue which direction to look.]

Make sure your are set correctly for a 10X/1:1 probe.

Set the vertical to 1 V per division, with zero on the first division from the bottom.

You should get a 0 to 3 V signal, starting high and going to zero for the first bit, with the other bits following.