Thanks Vernon,
I have power connections to all 3 rails of my layout. When troubleshooting my problem with jumpers I forgot to jumper both outside rails. Adding a jumper to the other outside rail showed me what the real problem was. The Atlas rail joiners just don't work well at all. I think one of the tiny joints between the rail pin and the atlas connection part failed.
I am not sure why TMCC is so fussy about having a connection to both outer rails.