Extraneous input error when using "lexer rule actions" and "lexer commands" - antlr4

Question

I'm seeing an "extraneous input" error with input "\aa a" and the following grammar:
Cool.g4
grammar Cool;
import Lex;
expr
: STR_CONST # str_const
;
Lex.g4
lexer grammar Lex;
#lexer::members {
public static boolean initial = true;
public static boolean inString = false;
public static boolean inStringEscape = false;
}
BEGINSTRING: '"' {initial}? {
inString = true;
initial = false;
System.out.println("Entering string");
} -> more;
INSTRINGSTARTESCAPE: '\\' {inString && !inStringEscape}? {
inStringEscape = true;
System.out.println("The next character will be escaped!");
} -> more;
INSTRINGAFTERESCAPE: ~[\n] {inString && inStringEscape}? {
inStringEscape = false;
System.out.println("Escaped a character.");
} -> more;
INSTRINGOTHER: (~[\n\\"])+ {inString && !inStringEscape}? {
System.out.println("Consumed some other characters in the string!");
} -> more;
STR_CONST: '"' {inString && !inStringEscape}? {
inString = false;
initial = true;
System.out.println("Exiting string");
};
WS : [ \t\r\n]+ -> skip ; // skip spaces, tabs, newlines
ID: [a-z][_A-Za-z0-9]*;
Here's the output:
$ grun Cool expr -tree
"\aa a"
Entering string
The next character will be escaped!
Escaped a character.
Consumed some other characters in the string!
Exiting string
line 1:0 extraneous input '"\aa' expecting STR_CONST
(expr "\aa a")
Interestingly, if I remove the ID rule, antlr parses the input fine. Here's the output when I remove the ID rule:
$ grun Cool expr -tree
"\aa a"
Entering string
The next character will be escaped!
Escaped a character.
Consumed some other characters in the string!
Exiting string
(expr "\aa a")
Any idea what might be going on? Why does antlr throw an error when ID is one of the Lexer rules?

Answer 1

That's a surprisingly complex way to parse strings with escape sequences. Did you print the resulting tokens to see what your lexer produced?
I recommond a different (and much simpler) approach:
STR_CONST: '"' ('\\"' | .)*? '"';
Then in your semantic phase, when you post process your parse tree, examine the matched text to find escape sequences. Convert them to the real chars and print a good error message, when an invalid escape sequence was found (something you cannot do when trying to match escape sequences in the lexer).

Answer 2

Copying the answer I received from #sharwell on GitHub.
"Your ID rule is unpredicated, so it matches aa following the \ (aa is longer than the a matched by INSTRINGAFTERESCAPE, so it's preferred even though it's later in the grammar). If you add a println to WS and ID you'll see the strange behavior in the output."