ProEngineerConnect issue

I have code that I have written in C using the toolkit on Creo Parametric 12.4.3.0.  It tries to connect to Creo using ProEngineerConnect(), and it works fine if Creo is up.  When Creo is not running it returns a PRO_TK_E_NOT_FOUND value, which is expected.  If I have the call to ProEngineerConnect in a for-loop my executable dies after the third try when Creo is not running.  Here is the call:

iStatus = ProEngineerConnect("",NULL,NULL,"",PRO_B_TRUE,10U,&bRandom,&hSession);

This code worked just fine using Creo 10, but is failing under Creo 12.  I am using VS 2022.