Remote key not working

[Haakon]

Hey all. My friend has a Mk6, and it has two keys with both new batteries. Led light flashes on them. And they refuse to be synced to the car using the procedure in the handbook.

Before I get on ali express for a VCDS cable, is there anything obvious I might be missing? Are body control modules commonly iffy on these, or am looking at recoding the keys to the car via VCDS?

cheers