effect resource fails to load only in Release build

1

I have a monogame 3.6 project, running on windows, with the windows build. In debug mode my custom effect shader loads and works fine. When I do a release build, it says it cannot find the file. Anyone else have this problem and what is the solution?

update: upgrading to 3.7 did not resolve this

2

Did you check the build preference options? Copy if Newer is usually a good option

3

the file is getting copied, I can see it in the bin/Release tree