After doing some more digging I finally found several posts regarding this issue. Most didn't find a solution except for reinstalling the app which of course cleared the database. I didn't want to do that as it would take many days to reload.
A little more digging and I found this solution by 3ter.
It worked! It seems that getting the app to get a sync target lock kicks it out of this endless syncing problem. After the desktop finished syncing I clicked sync again and it was off to the races.
What I did was created about 20-40 junk notes, started the desktop sync, then had android do the same (with time sync check turned off which is usually off in my case to save battery). It locked, let desktop finish, then started Android sync again and all is fine now.
I created the junk notes to make sure the desktop sync was still running when Android tried. Otherwise it might have finished before Android got going. And of course if you can turn off sync target lock, you want to make sure sync target lock is enabled/functional.
Anyway I am posting this in case anyone else runs into this problem. I would post on the original thread but of course it is locked.