Processes in Microsoft 365 for setting up Office apps, redeeming product keys, and activating licenses.
It's definitely a strangely executing error.
Yeah, well, whatever it is, one thing is for certain; it broke with an MS update.
There's really no doubt about that because everyone who has reported this issue has not also reported other anomalies with their machines or setups; just Office updates. So MS needs to figure out what in the hell THEY broke.