Can't compress file. Finder says "Couldn't communicate with a helper application."

I am running Monterey 12.7.6. My machine is a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) 2.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3.

I suddenly started getting this error today. I know of no updates overnight, and have done nothing on my machine in several days that might have caused this. I did free up space a few days ago, but have successfully compressed files since then. The issue seems intermittent, as I have gotten the error, then later been able to compress files. But it is happening more than it is not happening.