"Only releases with status draft may be created on draft app"

I have been successfully publishing my Maui app to the Google Play Store.  However, something changed recently (I’m assuming it was moving to RC1) and now when I try to publish I get the message “Only releases with status draft may be created on draft app.”.  I don’t think I’m doing anything differently – I’m still just publishing to “Internal”.  Is there a new way to mark an app as “draft”?

On a related subject, I notice a significant overlap between what’s in the “AndroidManifest.xml” and the entries in the “csproj” file (e.g. “AndroidManifestApplicationPackageName” == “package”, “AndroidManifestApplicationVersionNumber” == “android:versionCode”, “AndroidManifestApplicationVersionName” == “android:versionName”).  Which is the “correct” place to put these entries, or do we need to keep both up-to-date?  Is there any publicly available guidance on this?

Thanks in advance!

Brad.

P.S.  I am able to upload the package manually and create a new release just fine.