I presume you have tried different headphones, but worth trying if not. Knowing next to nothing about BT protocols, I wonder if there is some level of session token that isn’t getting refreshed when it reconnects, thus connected, but not authorized. Not sure if that’d be windows or not.

I don't have this issue with these headphones with a MacBook or my Linux machines. If I boot up a live linux dostro from a USB on this windows machine, I don't have this issue either. So it doesn't appear to be the hardware either