Unable to communicate with the robot via ROS 2

[tgkell]

I'm new to Create 3. I set it up, updated firmware according to instructions, I had ROS2 working from Ubuntu yesterday, but left it on the dock. I powered it off while still on the dock and found I had to pick it up off the dock to get the lights to shut off. This morning I put it back on the dock, it powered on and booted up, and ROS2 now shows just
$ros2 topic list
/parameter_events
/rosout

I've tried two different Ubuntu machines with the same results. I've tried switching to CycloneDDS (re-started application on Create 3, changed environment variable RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp on Ubuntu), and I've tried switching it back to RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp on Create 3 and Ubuntu, several times, with no luck)

I've tried powering off and on, and I've tried moving the bluetooth switch to "USB".

No network changes since yesterday: both Ubuntu and Create 3 are on the same network (can access the Create 3 webpage and I can ping Create 3 from Ubuntu).

I've attached the log file below, which does contain errors, although I believe the same errors were present when ROS2 was working.

If anyone has any pointers, I'd appreciate hearing them!

Cheers,
Todd
messages.txt

[shamlian]

This is likely a problem with your computer's network set up, or a middleware mismatch, as you suspected. Your logs look normal, to me. Can you give us more information about your network setup, which middleware you are using, and whether or not you have any custom configuration?

[bluecamel]

Maybe try increasing the spin time? If the network is slow, it might give up early.

[shamlian]

I suspect a networking problem with the virtual machines, but it will be difficult to figure out exactly where it is. I haven't worked with VMWare in particular, but I will see what I can do to find a colleague who can help.

[tgkell]

My problem does not seem to be with the Create 3 itself. I believe you're right that the main issue seems to be with virtual machine networking. I also suspect my wireless router with Netgear SmartConnect might be affecting things, possibly.

I installed a bare-metal (not a VM) Ubuntu machine with wired networking, and ROS2 seems to work well between it and the Create 3, and has continued working after a power cycle of the Create 3.

Furthermore, the two VMs, a Ubuntu VM, and a Windows VM running Ubuntu WSL2, both work if networking is bridged to a wired Ethernet connection on the host. Neither VM works (anymore) with networking bridged to wireless, even with "ros2 topic list --no-daemon --spin-time 100" .

To test my wireless setup without VMs involved, I'm currently working on setting up a Raspberry Pi 3B running Ubuntu with wireless networking. I'll post when I have results. The 64G microSD card does boot, but it might be too big and causing weird storage-based issues, so I'm waiting for a 32G card to arrive. Another source of weird issues might be that I've never used cloud-init before, but I should be able to get on top of that.

[shamlian]

Best of luck to you; for all of the good things it provides, I've found that virtualization breaks down when things (networking, USB) leave the host. As far as bridged networking over Wi-Fi, I have heard of a user who was having trouble with that when their computer auto-switched networks on them (for example, when there was a low signal strength for the AP they were using), where for whatever reason the VM didn't properly recover the network connection.

For what it's worth, I use a 64 GB card with a Raspberry Pi, and haven't had any trouble with that.

I'm going to leave this open since we're still in the process of trying to figure out how to make your end-to-end setup work; I'm glad at least to know that the Create is behaving itself. When you feel we've come to resolution, please make a new top-level answer and mark it as "answered."

[maddiepero]

You didn't happen to change your Domain ID number right? You might also want to run the command sudo nano ~/.bashrc and make sure you only have one export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp . As far as making sure your connection gets over we found that a Bridged network connection that replicates the physical network connection and in configure adapters only the WLAN box is ticked works best. We also just tried pinging apple from the terminal in VM to test if the connection was working.

[tgkell]

My investigations point to VMware Fusion networking being the problem with "ros2 topic list" not working on VM machines. Wireless is done with Netgear SmartConnect and that might be part of the problem as well. Here are the facts:

The Create 3 docs are awesome: the team did a great job in my opinion!

Wired bare metal Ubuntu machine works
Wireless bare metal Ubuntu Pi works
VMs DO work when the Mac laptop is wired, and the VM networking is bridged explicitly to the wired interface.
VMs do NOT work when the Mac laptop is wireless only, with VM networks bridged explicitly to the wireless interface.
Fusion networking is a bit finicky on my Mac in general lately.

A big thank you to all who replied!