Troubleshooting#

Gazebo libraries are not found#

If you see this error message:

I cannot find any available 'gz' command:
	* Did you install any Gazebo library?
	* Did you set the GZ_CONFIG_PATH environment variable?
	    E.g.: export GZ_CONFIG_PATH=$HOME/local/share/gz

You should set up the environment variable:

# replace <path_to_install_dir> to your Gazebo installation directory
GZ_CONFIG_PATH=<path_to_install_dir>/share/gz/

macOS#

Unable to find urdf_model.h error#

After installing all the dependencies and starting the build process, you may encounter an error that looks like this:

/Users/user/harmonic_ws/src/sdformat/src/parser_urdf.cc:30:10: fatal error: 'urdf_model/model.h' file not found
#include <urdf_model/model.h>
         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.
make[2]: *** [src/CMakeFiles/sdformat9.dir/parser_urdf.cc.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [src/CMakeFiles/sdformat9.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2
Failed   <<< sdformat9	[ Exited with code 2 ]

First check if urdfdom and urdfdom_headers are installed by running:

brew install urdfdom urdfdom_headers

Then if the error persists, compile with the internal version of urdfdom by running:

colcon build --cmake-args -DUSE_INTERNAL_URDF=ON --merge-install

This command will ignore the system installation of urdfdom and use the internal version instead.

Unable to load .dylib file#

When running the gz sim -s command, an error like the one below may show up:

Error while loading the library [/Users/harmonic/harmonic_ws/install/lib//libgz-physics6-dartsim-plugin.6.dylib]: dlopen(/Users/harmonic/harmonic_ws/install/lib//libgz-physics6-dartsim-plugin.6.dylib, 5): Library not loaded: @rpath/libIrrXML.dylib
  Referenced from: /usr/local/opt/assimp/lib/libassimp.5.dylib
  Reason: image not found
[Err] [Physics.cc:275] Unable to load the /Users/harmonic/harmonic_ws/install/lib//libgz-physics6-dartsim-plugin.6.dylib library.
Escalating to SIGKILL on [Gazebo Sim Server]

The issue is related to OSX System Integrity Protection (SIP). The workaround is to run gz with a different ruby then make sure that ruby is loaded.

brew install ruby

# Add the following to ~/.bashrc
export PATH=/usr/local/Cellar/ruby/2.6.5/bin:$PATH

# Source ~/.bashrc in terminal
. ~/.bashrc

No rule to make target '/usr/lib/libm.dylib', needed by 'lib/libgz-physics6-dartsim-plugin.6.1.0.dylib'. Stop.#

Try to run brew outdated followed by a brew upgrade may fix some of it.

Ubuntu#

Out of memory issues#

There can be out of memory issue during the compilation of Gazebo, especially during compilation of gz-physics. To prevent out of memory issues you can restrict the number of jobs:

MAKEFLAGS="-j<Number of jobs> " colcon build --executor sequential

Problems with dual Intel and Nvidia GPU systems#

If you are using a dual Intel/Nvidia system it could be the case that the simulator is being run under Intel instead of using the Nvidia GPU. Bugs can vary but there could problems with shadows, incorrect laser scans or other rendering related issues.

prime-select command line tool#

Hybrid Intel/Nvidia systems can be configured using the command line tool prime-select. One option is to use always Nvidia:

sudo prime-select nvidia
# logout user session and login again

Other option is to configure the render offload for OpenGL applications to use Nvidia. This means that your X screen and all normal applications are handled by the Intel GPU, but all OpenGL applications that you start from the terminal (including Gazebo) are rendered on the Nvidia GPU.

# place the lines in your .bashrc if you want the change to be permanent
export __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1
export __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia
# logout user session and login again

nvidia-settings GUI tool#

nvidia-settings is a GUI program that helps to configure the options for the Nvidia graphic cards and includes some controls for hybrid Intel/Nvidia:

The section “PRIME Profiles” can be used to select that the Nvidia card controls all the GUI applications by selecting “NVIDIA (Performance Mode)”.

The “Application Profiles” can control the use of the Nvidia GPU per application.

Unable to create the rendering window#

If you’re getting errors like “Unable to create the rendering window”, it could mean you’re using an old OpenGL version. Gazebo Sim uses the Ogre 2 rendering engine by default, which requires an OpenGL version higher than 3.3, preferrably 4.3+.

This can be confirmed by checking the Ogre 2 logs at ~/.gz/rendering/ogre2.log, which should have an error like:

"OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): OpenGL 3.3 is not supported. Please update your graphics card drivers."

You can also check your OpenGL version running:

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"

To enable Ogre 2 support, you’ll need to update your computer’s OpenGL version. As suggested on the Ogre logs, this may require updating your graphics card drivers.

If you still run into OpenGL issues when running Gazebo with Ogre 2, it could be that certain extensions are not supported by your driver or you are running inside a virtual machine. In this case, you can try disabling DRI:

export LIBGL_DRI3_DISABLE=1

or force software rendering

export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1

If you are using MESA drivers, you can also try overriding the OpenGL version

export MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.3

The Ogre 2 debs from the osrfoundation repository are built from a fork of Ogre’s v2-3 branch with changes needed for deb packaging and allowing it to be co-installable with Ogre 1.x. The code can be found here:

osrf/ogre-2.3-release

You should be able to use Ogre 1 without any issues however. You can check if that’s working by running with Ogre 1 instead of Ogre 2, such as:

gz sim -v 3 shapes.sdf --render-engine ogre

If that loads, you can continue to use Gazebo with Ogre 1, just use the --render-engine ogre option.

Wayland issues#

There’s an issue with the interaction of Ogre and Qt in Gazebo that prevents wayland from working properly. You might see an error message like the one below:

Unable to create the rendering window: OGRE EXCEPTION(3:RenderingAPIException): currentGLContext was specified with no current GL context in GLXWindow::create at ./RenderSystems/GL3Plus/src/windowing/GLX/OgreGLXWindow.cpp (line 165)

A workaround is to set QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb. e.g.:

QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb gz sim -v 4 shapes.sdf

Another workaround to try is to make sure Gazebo is launched with XWayland by unsetting the WAYLAND_DISPLAY environment variable, e.g.

env -u WAYLAND_DISPLAY gz sim -v 4 shapes.sdf

EGL warnings#

On startup, Gazebo prints out EGL warning messages like the one below:

libEGL warning: DRI2: failed to create dri screen

This message is printed out by Ogre 2 on initialization when it enumerates through devices to query for EGL support. The warning is fine to ignore. Gazebo should continue to operate without any issues.

Network Configuration Issue#

Improper network configuration can cause Gazebo to open a window and then become unresponsive. This issue can be diagnosed by running gz sim -v 4 shapes.sdf and checking for the following output:

[GUI] [Dbg] [Gui.cc:343] GUI requesting list of world names. The server may be busy downloading resources. Please be patient.

To fix this, enable multicast by following the steps at ROS Enable Multicast.

Windows#

VisualStudioVersion is not set, please run within a Visual Studio Command Prompt.#

When you try to compile Gazebo you might see an error in your prompt like:

VisualStudioVersion is not set, please run within a Visual Studio Command Prompt.

In this case execute one of the following commands:

  • CMD

    "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x86_amd64

  • PowerShell:

pushd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\Tools"
cmd /c "VsDevCmd.bat&set" |
foreach {
  if ($_ -match "=") {
    $v = $_.split("="); set-item -force -path "ENV:\$($v[0])"  -value "$($v[1])"
  }
}
popd