I have responded to the other thread, but thought this was worth mentioning. For frustrating jobs like this it is best to be systematic. I would always be dragged down one rabbit hole after another chasing something i thought was the issue and lose sight of the bigger picture. These days I try to eliminate each part of the puzzle in turn. With this one I would have started with the fan itself and worked back.. In order to make this easier I purchased a device called a PowerProbe. For DYI it is genius. Sure, pros use higher tech kit, but for me it just does it.
Heres one:
Power Probe PPROKIT01 Red Professional Testing Electrical Kit : Amazon.com.au: Home Improvement
but there are others, some way cheaper. Combined with my kinda high end multimeter and a polarity sensing test light you are set for most issues like you faced.
Just refrain from using any of them on any SRS system.... Yeah, I know, but you may not always be playing with Classics.