Joe,
The same thing happened to me while trying to e-file my 2020 return. I checked the box to file both federal and state and paid the $25 fee. Unfortunately, the federal return was rejected and subsequently had to file a paper return. And of course, if your federal return is rejected, the state is rejected as well.
Afterwards, I did read somewhere on Intuit, that the fee cannot be refunded due to the fact that time was expended to reject the return.
For 2021, I e-filed the federal first and waited for for an acceptance which took 3 tries. Then I paid the $25 and e-filed the state with success.
