Steven Zahm@ Ted
re: the version available to me via the downloads section with my current license is 1.0.1
The current version available to you from your purchase history is 3.0.1. The current version is the only version that can be downloaded, not past versions.
re: So, following your note, I went to delete the old excerpt template from wp-content/plugins/connections/templates/excerpt and then it stopped working again. Same error appeared. So I copied it back again and now it works OK.
I very strongly recommend you do not put the template in this folder. One, it’ll be deleted by WordPress during a plugin upgrade. Two, that is a very old version of the template. I suggest downloading and installing the current version.
If you really wish to use the older version, it must be put in this path:
../wp-content/connections_templates/excerpt/
That is the only way it will not be deleted during a plugin upgrade by WordPress. The path may look similar, but there are very different.