Problem with gmapping.launch file

Question

Hello!

I am a newbie to ROS. Please bear with me.

I was following the tutorials by Clearpath Robotics for Navigation basics. Here is the link: ROS Navigation Basics

Here, at the step where I have to launch the gmapping.launch file, I get the following error :

ERROR: cannot launch node of type [gmapping/slam_gmapping]: gmapping
ROS path [0]=/opt/ros/indigo/share/ros
ROS path [1]=/home/sri/jackal_navigation/src
ROS path [2]=/opt/ros/indigo/share
ROS path [3]=/opt/ros/indigo/stacks

I am not sure what this error means. Can anybody please help?

P.S. There is another question where the similar error was obtained here. However, the answers there did not help me in resolving the issue.

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Originally posted by Srinidhi on ROS Answers with karma: 7 on 2016-01-27

Post score: 0

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Original comments

Comment by mgruhler on 2016-01-28:
are you sure gmapping is installed? Just run a sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-slam-gmapping to install it.

It is also a bit odd, that you have /opt/ros/indigo/share/ros in your path. In which order did you source the workspaces and did you edit the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH manually?

Comment by Srinidhi on 2016-01-28:
Thank you! I had installed gmapping by pulling it from github, but after installing thru aprt-get it's working fine. I sourced the workspaces as per the tutorial. I did not edit the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH. I am not sure of /opt/ros/indigo/share/ros in my path. Is it gonna pose a problem in the future?

Comment by mgruhler on 2016-01-28:
I'll just post as an answer, as it is solved now...

Answer 1

Seems as if gmapping is not installed and/or not on your ROS_PACKAGE_PATH.

Install via sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-slam-gmapping. If you want to build it from source, you need to put it in your ROS workspace (I'm guessing in /home/sri/jackal_navigation/src and build the workspace.

About your strange paths in the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:

Maybe try to build again with the following commands in a new terminal (make sure you don't source anything in the bashrc).

source /opt/ros/indigo/setup.bash
echo $ROS_PACKAGE_PATH
cd /home/sri/jackal_navigation
catkin_make
source /home/sri/jackal_navigation/devel/setup.bash
echo $ROS_PACKAGE_PATH

And check the output. The output should be (approximately ;-) ):

1. /opt/ros/indigo/share:/opt/ros/indigo/stacks
2. /home/sri/jackal_navigation/src:/opt/ros/indigo/share:/opt/ros/indigo/stacks

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Originally posted by mgruhler with karma: 12390 on 2016-01-28

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 2