PathPlanner not working because of Alert ID conflicts

[Alan6458]

When we try to put our robot code (https://github.com/FRC5285/FRC5285-2026) in both simulation and roborio, this message pops up and our code crashes:

Could not instantiate robot frc.robot.Robot!
com.pathplanner.lib.config.RobotConfig.<clinit>(RobotConfig.java:65)
	at org.wpilib.util.WPIUtilJNI.createAlert(Native Method)
	at org.wpilib.util.Alert.<init>(Alert.java:97)
	at org.wpilib.util.Alert.<init>(Alert.java:84)
	at com.pathplanner.lib.config.RobotConfig.<clinit>(RobotConfig.java:65)
	at frc.robot.subsystems.CommandSwerveDrivetrain.configureAutoBuilder(CommandSwerveDrivetrain.java:146)
	at frc.robot.subsystems.CommandSwerveDrivetrain.<init>(CommandSwerveDrivetrain.java:87)
	at frc.robot.generated.TunerConstants.createDrivetrain(TunerConstants.java:202)
	at frc.robot.RobotContainer.<init>(RobotContainer.java:32)
	at frc.robot.Robot.<init>(Robot.java:26)
	at org.wpilib.framework.RobotBase.runRobot(RobotBase.java:469)
	at org.wpilib.framework.RobotBase.startRobot(RobotBase.java:589)
	at frc.robot.Main.main(Main.java:13)

I believe it's because in the PathPlanner library, where RobotConfig tries to create multiple Alerts with the same ID (I tested creating two Alerts with the same ID elsewhere, and the code crashed in the same way at that location). WPILib isn't accepting it, and it's probably crashing the robot code as a result (I tested creating two Alerts with the same ID elsewhere, and the code crashed in the same way at that location).

Where should I report this issue to get it fixed? Thanks

[SamCarlberg]

Looks like pathplanner didn't update their alerts to provide unique IDs in their alpha 7 update:

mjansen4857/pathplanner@79199a7#diff-bca2c64963a07e2c250a23a03bdda2a7f6ca1c1fffcb336f005b09690a3fdfd0R61-R89

WPILib changed the Alert(String, String, Level) constructor in a breaking way between alpha 6 and alpha 7 - it's now (id, name, level) instead of (group, name, level) - so the pathplannerlib code in the commit I linked still compiles but will always crash at runtime.

[blaze-developer]

Is there a documented reason for why an identifier is now required? The PR including this change is only described as moving the API. Only when you look at the diff and the Javadocs, you would be able to know about this change.

In the release changelog, the only noted change was "Alert moved to wpiutil and has added functionality; usage reporting also moved to wpiutil. Joystick warnings are now alerts"

Was the changed method signature documented anywhere? I'm just confused how library developers would have been notified of this change without digging through every Javadoc.

[sciencewhiz]

Path planner 2027.0.0-alpha-4.1 was released to fix this.