Troubleshooting

This chapter contains tips for troubleshooting common problems in building and running OceanWATERS.

Build Problems

ow_simulator/ow_ephemeris

If the build fails with an error like this:

CMake Error at ....ow/src/ow_simulator/ow_ephemeris/CMakeLists.txt:42 (message):
  ....ow/src/ow_simulator/ow_ephemeris/data/jup365.bsp

The problem is that the download of jup365.bsp (over 1GB) failed, timed out, or is corrupted. A workaround is to download this file manually:

https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/generic_kernels/spk/satellites/jup365.bsp

and place it in ow_simulator/ow_ephemeris/data. Then retry catkin build.

Runtime Problems

Endless "Exception sending a message" messages in terminal.

This tends to happen when running Gazebo while on a VPN. To prevent these messages, do the following:

export IGN_IP=127.0.0.1

For convenience you can add this to your shell init file, e.g. .profile or .bashrc.

LCP errors

These look like:

ODE Message 3: LCP internal error, s <= 0 (s=-0.0000e+00)

and generally indicate that a collision has occurred. They will typically stop occurring if and when the collision is resolved. However, when using the regolith node, they will occur frequently as long as regolith is carried in scoop.

Gazebo scaling problems

If your Gazebo looks like the image at the top of this page, put the following in your shell init file (e.g. .bashrc):

export QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0
export QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=[1.0]

This has worked in Ubuntu 18.04 with Gazebo 9.19.0.