not able to connect to a GroupShare TM resource via Project Automation

Our code is failing to get connected to resources on the GroupShare server using FileBasedProject to build automations.  The implementation is using a language pair specific template to configure use of TMs and the SDL MT Cloud plugin.  During Analyze and Pre-Translate tasks, we are getting the following error:
"Unexpected exception when initializing task 'Analyze Files': Failed to create an instance of translation provider 'sdltm.server.domain.com/ - German'.."

The same template and processing flow have been working on Studio2019 with GroupShare 2017, but are now failing when upgrading to Studio 2021.

Language pair section of the template:

  <LanguageDirections>
    <LanguageDirection Guid="93a4b224-4c35-4246-a407-c37cbdb25024" SettingsBundleGuid="45c531d4-5d10-46fc-8564-de8b7d71255a" TargetLanguageCode="de-DE" SourceLanguageCode="en-US">
      <AutoSuggestDictionaries />
      <CascadeItem OverrideParent="true" StopSearchingWhenResultsFound="false">
        <CascadeEntryItem PerformConcordanceSearch="true" Penalty="0" PerformUpdate="true" PerformNormalSearch="true">
          <MainTranslationProviderItem Uri="sdltm.https://server.domain.com/?orgPath=%2FGerman&tmName=Labels%20-%20German" Enabled="true" />
        </CascadeEntryItem>
        <CascadeEntryItem PerformConcordanceSearch="true" Penalty="0" PerformUpdate="false" PerformNormalSearch="true">
          <MainTranslationProviderItem Uri="sdltm.https://server.domain.com/?orgPath=%2FGerman&tmName=General%20-%20German" Enabled="true" />
        </CascadeEntryItem>
        <CascadeEntryItem PerformConcordanceSearch="false" Penalty="0" PerformUpdate="false" PerformNormalSearch="true">
          <MainTranslationProviderItem Uri="sdlmtcloud:///" State="{"AutoSendFeedback":true,"LanguagesSupported":[{"Name":"English (United States) - German (Germany)","SourceTradosCode":"en-US","TargetTradosCode":"de-DE","SelectedSource":{"CodeName":"eng","IsLocale":false},"SelectedTarget":{"CodeName":"ger","IsLocale":false},"SelectedModel":{"DisplayName":"eng-ger Bloomberg","Model":"bloomberg","MTCloudLanguagePair":{"sourceLanguageId":"eng","targetLanguageId":"ger","model":"bloomberg","displayName":"Bloomberg","name":"engger_bloomberg","active":"yes"},"Source":"en-US","Target":"de-DE"},"SelectedDictionary":{"name":"No dictionary available","description":null,"source":null,"target":null,"dictionaryId":""},"SourceLanguages":[{"CodeName":"eng","IsLocale":false}],"TargetLanguages":[{"CodeName":"ger","IsLocale":false}]}],"ResendDraft":true,"SendFeedback":true}" Enabled="true" />
        </CascadeEntryItem>
      </CascadeItem>
    </LanguageDirection>
  </LanguageDirections>


The actual server is confirmed valid and reachable from the machine running the automation.

Software versions:

  • Trados Studio: 16.2.9.9198
  • GroupShare 14.2.60175.10
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