yes! fixed it! youwere actually right about the .json extension instead of the .JSON. i have no clue why, but whenever i select the .json in the list of file types to save it as, even though it shoes its gonna be lower case it always ends up in upper case which doesnt seem to work... had to just use the normal right click and rename to do the lower case file extension.
thanks for the help and putting up with the ramblings of a newb lol.