ok, I think I figured it out.. sort of stupid actually..
for some reason the launcher was not the current version and was not asking to update.
it was version 1.0.4.6, hey what do I know that it needed a new version. I uninstalled it.
and deleted every thing left over from that version.
and got version 1.0.5.2 running and now it will do the sync without errors.
I had the dot net install 4.7.2 etc before.. for what ever reason nothing indicated it needed a newer launcher version.