Your control box should be putting out 24 V DC when you check the colored wire for that zone, and the white common wire.

Check that with a volt meter.

If you are not getting power, you most likely have a clock or wire problem.

You can power a valve by using 3 9volt batteries connected in series to the valve wires. (Think bridging 2 batterys with the third, they all connect to each other)

This will isolate the valve from the clock to eliminate another possibility.
I would suggest cutting about 1/2 off of all the wires, and re-doing the connections. It sounds like a wiring problem to me. Probably on the white common wire.

You can manually actuate most valves by unscrewing the solenoid a 1/4 turn. This has no bearing on if the valve is bad or not.