How do I obfuscate fields in the Settings Page of a .NET C# project?

spazjr01

I have two projects in a solution.  There is a smartassembly project file for each project.  I have never had this problem in past releases.  The user ids, connection strings, and passwords are set up in a Setting Page, one in each project (as described in Settings Page, Project Designer - Visual Studio (Windows) | Microsoft Docs)  In the first project, all of these values are obfuscated.  Previously, in the second project, all were obfuscated.  After a development cycle, the last thing I do is run the smartassembly on the resulting executable and open in notepad to make sure the values are not present.  This time, I can see values from the Settings Page of the 2nd project.  But, I can't figure out why.  I have pulled out my hair trying to identify the problem, and I am at my wits end.  Any ideas?  Please let me know what you need from me to answer this question.