In queue.c from FreeRTOS 8.2.2 the xQueueGenericCreate function ends (see line 383 on) with:

configASSERT( xReturn );

return xReturn;

so it's impossible for the function to return NULL without triggering the assertion. However the documentation (http://www.freertos.org/a00116.html) states that xQueueCreate can return 0 to indicate failure.

If assertions were turned off this function would operate as documented, so it seems like this assert should not be present.

Its gone! [but the change is not checked in yet]

If you have a malloc failed hook defined then that will get called anyway, so it was perhaps a little obsolete.

Looks like this change never got checked in, I'm still seeing this assert in 8.2.3 and 9.0.0rc1

Look at the definitions of xQueueGenericCreate() and xQueueGenericCreateStatic() in the head revision (lines 384 and 332 at the time of posting) - the assert was removed, but after rc1. Since rc1 some simplification of the static allocation code has been made.

https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/FreeRTOS/Source/queue.c

Excellent, thanks. Another reason to look forward to 9.0.0!