Bluetooth headphones remain in connection mode with blinking blue light while audio is "working" very poorly

I am having problems with the bluetooth functionality on my desktop computer.

I have done a lot of debugging. I will try and describe the problem that I've had and the debugging steps I've taken.

When I connect headphones to my desktop with bluetooth, the audio quality is intolerably bad. It sounds super glitchy and distorted/metallic (not just operating at a low bandwidth) with clipping. I noticed it first with my 2020 model Airpods which worked well on my mac laptop and my Android phone. My setup was on a Windows 10 (education edition) desktop computer with this bluetooth usb adapter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085LB5Y8M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I purchased a pair of Anker soundcore headphones. They produced the same behavior, with the interesting behavior that the bluetooth connection light remained blinking whenever connected. This is not the behavior that I saw when connecting to my Macbook or phone.

I decided it must be an issue with the bluetooth adapter so I got a new one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VWEK4IG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. This is where things get interesting...

Upon connecting my Anker headphones through the new adapter, everything worked well. I was able to listen to music and even to use the headset over Zoom as a microphone with very high quality audio. I was happy and it seemed that the problem had been the adapter. Today, I'm back to the same behavior and I've tried everything I could think of. I have tried disabling everything that could be interfering. I've tried listening with my head under hte desk 2 inches from the adapter. I've tried restarting all devices. Removing the device (when I choose to remove the device, it says remove failed:

In the forums, the only suggestion I can find is that it relates to handsfree vs. stereo. I followed the steps here:

https://superuser.com/questions/1088942/whats-the-difference-between-stereo-and-hands-free

Again, this seems critical, the blue light on my headphones continues to blink even though they are presumably connected and horrid quality sound is coming through.

Also important: They worked for hours of usage with no apparent difference in settings.