OK, I've at least found a work around, but it is still strange.

I was playing around and I saved the MIDI under a new name from RB, then loaded the "new" MIDI in RB and it plays OK. But the original XG MIDI still doesn't.

And for grins I saved the MIDI from Reaper where the XG MIDI plays OK and that saved MIDI copy also plays fine in RB.

This is without making any direct changes, no SyEx messages removed, etc. Just saving and then loading the saved MIDI.

I'll still try to root cause it but at least I can work with the files now.

Thanks for all your assistance.

Burt