Before I posted this on the community, I had called Quickbooks and talked with what I assume was a first level tech support b/c all they could do is have me do the same steps you posted here.  Those steps did not work nor did your suggestions.

What seems to be an indicator that the problem is with the distributed 2021 QB template file is that when I have QB 2021 loaded and use Excel to load the QB2012 template of the same name the report runs fine AND it is running on the 2021 data file since edited the last paycheck in the 2021 datafile to adjust the last paycheck by $10,000.   

There is a problem and that is the hint.  I don't know how to fix or edit b/c the QB template file are password protected.