BI Publisher PDF Template not merging with data

Oracle BI Publisher 12.2.1.4.0 (build:20210225.1302) 

Everything seems to be ok. I am putting the field name as <?FieldName?> to match the XML file. But when I import the template to BIP and run the report, no data shows. I found this while searching:

**‘Apply the one-off backport patch 25896614 - PDF FILES NOT WORKING AS TEMPLATES WHEN SAVED AS ADOBE ACROBAT DC 11 PRO FILES for 12.2.1.2.0’**

but we are on a later version. I asked our Server Middleware guy to try the install in our DEV environment and he got this:

********OPatch detects the Middleware Home as "E:\Oracle\Middleware\Oracle_Home"

 Verifying environment and performing prerequisite checks...