Time for a re-think

About germinating courgette and cukes. My old tried and trusted method has failed me this year, think the seed mybe a little dodgy as a fellow lottyman is having the same problem with the same variety.
So my thoughts were to dust off the heated propogator and stick em in, still no joy, not one single solitary seed germinated.

So me re-think is to try and chit them, has anybody tried this? Works for beans, corn, spuds and snips so can't see why not for cukes and courgettes.
Thoughts peeps.

Is your fellow lottyman sowing from the same batch of seed and/or in the same compost as you are?

As you already know neither of these is usually difficult to germinate so your chitting experiment would test the viability of the seed.

If your compost has already successfully been used to germinate other seeds this year then it probably isn't that, if not, sowing in different compost would eliminate that as a potential cause.