Switched firewalld to iptables and that solved the problem for now.
according to what I found here:
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/archives/list/firewalld-users@lists.fedora...
https://firewalld.org/2020/09/policy-objects-introduction
I have to do something with policy objects if I want to use nftables. I'm going to
investigate that route.
Thanks to all who gave me suggestions in this thread
Jouk