gpg decryption error - bad session key

I have batch encrypted some backup files using a script. The OS is CentOS 7 and the current version of gpg is 2.0.22. The important parts of the script are:

enter code here`echo Enter passphrase
read PASS

for sourcefile in $(find /quitelarge/upload/proton/ -name *.gz); do

  echo $sourcefile
  destfile=$(echo $sourcefile | sed '1 s;/quitelarge/upload/proton;/quitelarge/upload/mega;')
  gpg --batch --passphrase "$PASS" -o $destfile.gpg -c $sourcefile

done

When I attempted to decrypt one of the files this happened:

gpg -d agent.tar.gz.gpg
gpg: CAST5 encrypted data
gpg: encrypted with 1 passphrase
gpg: DBG: cleared passphrase cached with ID: SAEFA41D323D1BAE9
gpg: decryption failed: Bad session key

Yes, I did enter the correct passphrase. In researching this problem I have found reference to: - Different version of gpg used to encrypt and decrypt - just tried encrypting/decrypting with the same version of gpg, same error - Issue on Windoze with cr/lf being included in pass phrase - from what I read I do not think this is a Linux concern I tested this process a year or more back and I could decrypt the backup files. perhaps something has changed in gpg (?) I am at a loss. Any suggestions? TIA, Ken p.s. As CentOS 7 is getting rather old in the tooth I tried decrypting the files on a Linux Mint 20.3 machine with gpg 2.2.19. Same issue. I have a suspicion that this may be related to the fact that gpg was upgraded at some point to gpg2. which gpg points to a link to gpg2. I DID run the test script against a new plaintext file with the current gpg and then tried to decrypt. Same issue.