Protected View appears to break external references in Excel 365 desktop

I have a set of workbooks maintained in the same network folder. The destination workbook takes information from the source workbooks to maintain calculations. The Protected View feature appears to be causal in breaking external references between the workbooks. With Protected View enabled in  Excel, and with the destination workbook already open, opening the source workbook and clicking the "Enable editing" button on the Protected View alert banner results in Excel replacing the specific worksheet nomenclature in a given external reference in the destination workbook with "#REF". The workbook address in the reference is unaffected, only the worksheet address is changed in the overall link. However, this breaks the reference.

Example: the reference '[Forecast 2022.xlsx]Division_Input'!F$5 changes to '[Forecast 2022.xlsx]#REF'!F$5 .

The behavior cannot be duplicated with Protected View disabled. This appears to be a bug and a fix is not noted in a search of Excel community posts or help files.

Any ideas for fixes or questions for clarification are appreciated.