All Sections
Cheat Sheet
Debugging Tips
Common issues and how to fix them: sensors, transforms, latency, URDF
Sensor Data Not Arriving
- Verify the sensor driver process is running
- Check physical connections (USB, serial, Ethernet)
- Confirm baud rate / port settings match the hardware
- Look for permission issues (e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0)
- Check if the sensor requires a warm-up period
Transform / Frame Errors
- Visualize the full transform tree to find missing links
- Check for duplicate publishers broadcasting the same frame
- Ensure timestamps are synchronized across all nodes
- Check for extrapolation errors (timestamps in the future)
- Verify URDF has correct parent-child relationships
Simulation Clock Issues
- Configure all nodes to use simulation time
- Verify the clock topic is being published
- Check that simulation time is actually advancing
- Ensure the simulator process is running and not paused
- Check for real-time vs. sim-time mismatches
High Latency / Slow Performance
- Check CPU usage — is one process pegging a core?
- Reduce image resolution or use compressed transport
- Use lossy delivery for high-frequency sensor streams
- Profile message frequencies and bandwidth usage
- Consider zero-copy transport for large messages
URDF / Robot Model Issues
- Validate XML syntax with check_urdf model.urdf
- Ensure all mesh file paths are correct
- Check inertia values are reasonable (not all zeros)
- Verify joint limits and effort/velocity limits
- Confirm the kinematic chain is connected (no orphan links)
Path Planning Failures
- Check that the costmap is being updated correctly
- Verify start and goal poses are in free space
- Increase planner timeout if the environment is complex
- Check robot footprint doesn't clip obstacles
- Verify the map resolution matches your needs