Thank you for your interest in my work. I suspect the problem is that when I developed the procedure for applying derivatization to substituent groups, I did not have an example with NeuGc, otherwise the process I came up with wouldn't have sufficed.
This is NeuAc. I know that when you permethylate it, the N-acetyl also carries an extra methyl group.
This is NeuGc:

Compared to N-acetyl, the N-glycolyl group has an extra hydroxyl group that would also pick up a second methyl group. Is that accurate?
If so, this is a deeper issue and I will probably need some time to verify my solution.
Thank you,
Joshua Klein