External radio tracking causes Auto Mute like behavior

[Cyberbarter]

With Auto Mute disabled, Tracking enabled, when I key the Xiegu external mic PTT and transmit, several seconds or more into the transmission, the SDRC stops the audio, then the Waterfall goes dark and the spectrum drops in magnitude. Just like the way Auto Mute would behave. When I release the Xiegu external mic PTT, audio, waterfall and spectrum recover. Sometimes it takes 15 seconds to recover. Sometimes a Red Transmit button appears on the External Radio section. This happens about 80% of the time.
If disable In the external radio by clicking on the Play button “Start the external radio display (power on/off)” located to the left of the “Track” button, transmitting works fine except I lose the ability to track an external radio via CAT over the Virtual com ports which is to be expected.

Question 1:
Has anyone seen this strange “Auto Mute” like behavior while “Auto Mute” is disabled?

Question 2:
Is there a way to configure SDR Console to log and display CAT commands for troubleshooting??

Any help would be most appreciated.
Bob Economaki
KE0FXL