If you were using a cone, did you have it on a cone stand a little ways away from the machine and then threaded through all the guides on the machine? I ask because you said you used a spool next and the spool worked, so it could be that it was the fact that the thread was on a cone that was the problem.
Both my Singer-branded Janome and my BabyLock Tiara will take any combination of anything, so long as I make sure to give cone thread and invisible thread enough space to unravel (un-kink?) itself before it gets to the guides.
Watson