Unexpected population size in output

[awatson1978]

Hello,
I'm running the following command using the congestive heart failure module:

./run_synthea -s 12345 -m *heart* -p 100 Illinois "Chicago"

When I inspect the output, 183 patients are being generated. Interestingly, that number stays the same when I rerun the command with the same seed.

We're getting a lot of duplicates. For instance, patient 90 is exported 4 different times....

• Lindsey52 Kunde533
• Eun46 Terry864
• Devona405 Glover433

90 -- Lindsey52 Kunde533 (63 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
95 -- Tasha327 Welch179 (55 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois 
50 -- Charisse42 Monahan736 (54 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
68 -- Wesley533 Hand679 (67 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
23 -- Tyisha680 Turcotte120 (67 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
90 -- Eun46 Terry864 (67 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
68 -- Agnes294 Mayer370 (77 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois 
50 -- Maryann106 Block661 (60 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
23 -- Yasuko490 Daugherty69 (54 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Anita473 Bergnaum523 (59 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
90 -- Devona405 Glover433 (69 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois 
23 -- Cary869 Mertz280 (63 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Milissa240 Gorczany269 (76 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
23 -- Tenisha328 Friesen796 (62 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
23 -- Arica110 Luettgen772 (70 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- George991 Bergstrom287 (52 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Daysi106 Nienow652 (58 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
23 -- Lavelle273 Shanahan202 (62 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
23 -- Mary779 Stehr398 (62 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Sheena120 Wuckert783 (84 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Marisa391 Jacobson885 (62 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Ferne426 Conn188 (65 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
java.lang.NullPointerException
        at java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap.putVal(ConcurrentHashMap.java:1011)
        at java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap.put(ConcurrentHashMap.java:1006)
        at org.mitre.synthea.world.agents.Person.setProvider(Person.java:504)
        at org.mitre.synthea.world.agents.Person.setProvider(Person.java:509)
        at org.mitre.synthea.world.agents.Person.getProvider(Person.java:497)
        at org.mitre.synthea.world.agents.Person.encounterStart(Person.java:434)
        at org.mitre.synthea.modules.EncounterModule.createEncounter(EncounterModule.java:133)
        at org.mitre.synthea.engine.State$Encounter.process(State.java:509)
        at org.mitre.synthea.engine.State.run(State.java:159)
        at org.mitre.synthea.engine.Module.process(Module.java:233)
        at org.mitre.synthea.engine.Module.process(Module.java:245)
        at org.mitre.synthea.engine.Generator.generatePerson(Generator.java:328)
        at org.mitre.synthea.engine.Generator.lambda$run$2(Generator.java:239)
        at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
50 -- Sharyl439 Larkin917 (63 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Bebe406 Frami345 (72 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Savannah232 Schoen8 (61 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Alanna27 Johnson679 (65 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Genevieve884 Runolfsdottir785 (66 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Joshua658 Spinka232 (62 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Ariana988 Schmitt836 (65 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED
50 -- Hae300 Johns824 (77 y/o F) Chicago, Illinois DECEASED

There's also that NullPointerException that gets thrown out a half dozen times during the run.

Any thoughts on what this all might be?

[jawalonoski]

@awatson1978 thank you for reporting this issue. I tried recreating the Null Pointer Exception on both the master branch and the covid19 branch and wasn't able to recreate it.

Given the stack trace, it looks like the software can't find a particular type of provider. This might happen if you changed the provider files, or if we fixed a bug recently.

Maybe try updating Synthea with git pull.

In regards to why patient 90 or patient 50 gets generated repeatedly -- because when you specify -p 100 that means "generate 100 living patients" so during the simulation if some of them die along the way, it will attempt to replace the dead patient with a living one (sometimes it needs to try repeatedly which is why you end up with 183). The dead patients are also exported, just in case you want them.