ha ha what stupid mistake. Cathode is negative not positive. ok. thanks. works now. lol
Your doing yourself a disservice by thinking negative and positive when using diodes, they are just cathode and anode. How they are wired depends on the function of the diode, usually you wire then so that they are forward biased (turn on) with the applied voltage, but in this case you want the diode to be wired in reverse bias for normal applied voltages. So it is at times valid to wire diodes one way or the other depending on it's function in the circuit. Thinking that one end is always positive and the other negative fails to understand the basic theory of operation of a simple diode.
Your failure was in not wiring the diode as shown and drawn correctly in the schematic, you tried to 'out think' the schematic.
Lefty