[apalrd]

I don't know anything about this specific issue, but this seems similar to the issue we had last year with Encoders (which internally use Counters for 1x or 2x). We could not get Rate from half of the counters(1x/2x) or encoders(4x) on the first boot, but could get Distance.

The workaround (for the entire 2011 season) was to only use half of the Encoders, since half of the FPGA counter and encoder(4x) modules had issues. We created dummy encoders in a specific order to force LV to allocate the counters in a specific order, and it worked, then jhersh released a workaround which marked the bad encoders/counters as already allocated in the WPIlib, so it would not use them.

Try creating two in order (by wiring a wire between the errors on the Opens so it forces them to execute in order) and seeing if both or only one has this issue.