IDK but I do know my flooring guys said don't use painter's tape on the wood floors. Not sure if they meant that as only until the cure time, or not at all even after the poly fully cured.

Painter's tape does nothing to my poly'ed woodwork, it pulls off easily and cleanly. The poly not bonding to the underlying surface strongly suggests improper surface prep and/or products used.

Poor prepping and paint job on the behalf of the pro painter. It looks like paint peeling off an unprepped surface, like there isn't any staining at all in the wood. Are you sure they used poly stain and not just regular paint? Or maybe there was something wrong with the polystain, there is kind of a grainy texture to the stuff. Maybe it got frozen or just not mixed well before use? The visible paint brush strokes is pretty sloppy too. What is the white residue from the tape outlines?

It was poly with stain added to it. I knew it would not be completely sanded down to bare wood, just a colored poly over the existing, sanded enough for bonding.

The white residue is just dust from sanding the balusters.

This job did not cost a lot. Get what you pay for. These areas will be fixed, and we'll live with it for a while until we decide to do something different.

How long was the tape left on before and after painting the balusters?

We had brand new finish in place wood floors that they used painters tape to tape down ram board. When the tape was removed poly came up.

This is just one of the spots.