Hello, I have found an issue that appears to be a bug.

Description

After updating to SpotBugs 4.8.4, the method annotated with edu.umd.cs.findbugs.annotations.Nullable is incorrectly flagged with NP_NULL_ON_SOME_PATH_FROM_RETURN_VALUE as a false positive.

https://spotbugs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/annotations.html#edu-umd-cs-findbugs-annotations-nullable

The annotated element could be null under some circumstances. This is treated the same way as not being annotated.

Java version

• OpenJDK Runtime Environment Corretto-21.0.1.12.1 (build 21.0.1+12-LTS)

Change Version

• SpotBugs: 4.8.3 to 4.8.4

minimum example

package com.sample.realworld;

import edu.umd.cs.findbugs.annotations.NonNull;
import edu.umd.cs.findbugs.annotations.Nullable;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        var hoge = new Hoge();
        System.out.println(hoge.sample);
    }

    public static class Hoge {
        @NonNull
        public String sample = getNullable();

        @Nullable String getNullable() {
            return "someValue";
        }
    }
}

Build script

plugins {
    id 'java'
    id("com.github.spotbugs") version "6.0.26"
}

group = 'com.sample.realworld'
version = '1.0-SNAPSHOT'

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    gradlePluginPortal()
}

dependencies {

    spotbugs("com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs:4.8.4")
//    spotbugs("com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs:4.8.3")

    compileOnly "com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs-annotations:${spotbugs.toolVersion.get()}"
}

Result run SpotBugsMain

Run SpotBugs with version 4.8.3:

./gradlew -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US clean spotbugsMain
 
BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 1s
3 actionable tasks: 3 executed

Run SpotBugs with version 4.8.4:

./gradlew -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US clean spotbugsMain
Starting a Gradle Daemon, 1 incompatible Daemon could not be reused, use --status for details
 
> Task :spotbugsMain FAILED
M D NP: Possible null pointer dereference in com.sample.realworld.Main.main(String[]) due to return value of called method  Method invoked at Main.java:[line 13]
 
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception. NP_NULL_ON_SOME_PATH_FROM_RETURN_VALUE * What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':spotbugsMain'.
> A failure occurred while executing com.github.spotbugs.snom.internal.SpotBugsRunnerForHybrid$SpotBugsExecutor
   > Verification failed: SpotBugs ended with exit code 1.

expected behavior

NP_NULL_ON_SOME_PATH_FROM_RETURN_VALUE is not detected

Additional Information

This Pull Request is probably the cause
#2694

Remove Nullable Annotation

• spotbugs("com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs:4.8.4")

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        var hoge = new Hoge();
        System.out.println(hoge.sample);
    }

    public static class Hoge {
        @NonNull
        public String sample = getNullable();

        String getNullable() {
            return null;
        }
    }
}

Run spotBugsMain

./gradlew -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US clean spotbugsMain

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 1s
3 actionable tasks: 3 executed

Thank you.