Using db insert in CI3 auto increment off in table?

Hi-  I have a strange behavior happening and I'm wondering if anyone can help!  I have a table with Users, that has an auto_increment field for  the ID.  Yesterday, the account approval process started failing and I see in the CI logs: 

Code:

ERROR - 2023-05-17 10:24:52 --> Query error: Duplicate entry '10084' for key 'PRIMARY' - Invalid query: INSERT INTO `tblUser` (`active`, `first_name`, `last_name`, `company`, `phone`, `email`, `username`, `password`, `ip_address`, `created_on`) VALUES (0, 'Xana', 'Wolf', 'uvm', '000-000-0000', '[email protected]', 'Xana Wolf', '$argon2i$v=19$m=4096,t=3,p=1$beO82X4wsRUxieorH5iRjg$C9HPtN9TYYmLLw+/VPJGzgh6ieZidOHwXwbcYtkj/OE', '132.198.100.190', 1684333492)

I reset the auto_increment value on the table, and I was able to insert one record, but then the next insert I get the above error again and the auto_increment value hasn't moved forward.
The code generating the error above is this: 

Code:

$data = [
$this->identity_column => $identity,
'username' => $identity,
'password' => $password,
'email' => $email,
'ip_address' => $ip_address,
'created_on' => time(),
'active' => ($manual_activation === FALSE ? 1 : 0)
];

// filter out any data passed that doesn't have a matching column in the users table
// and merge the set user data and the additional data
$user_data = array_merge($this->_filter_data($this->tables['users'], $additional_data), $data);
$this->trigger_events('extra_set');              
               
$this->db->insert($this->tables['users'], $user_data);

The insert statement looks correct to me, so I'm confused why the auto_increment value keeps getting out of whack?  I can add something in the code to check the max ID and make sure the auto_increment value is set correctly, I just would like to figure out why this is happening!  
I did find a thread about the mysql NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO setting, but I checked and it wasn't set.