@vrabaud: very gentle 🛎.

+1 to be merged.
On kinetic, just installing this package collapses all nodelet functions.

Hi, I am having this same issue:
[ERROR] [1510694438.414259937]: Skipping XML Document "/opt/ros/kinetic/share/gmapping/nodelet_plugins.xml" which had no Root Element. This likely means the XML is malformed or missing.

This occurs when trying do an rviz turtlebot minimal launch. Won't let rvis continue without this. I have the gmapping version 1.3.9, and I looked at the file location and there is still no nodelet_plugins.xml. Is this fix in version 1.3.9 or is this still waiting for a newer release?

@josiahls wrote:

I have the gmapping version 1.3.9, and I looked at the file location and there is still no nodelet_plugins.xm

this PR hasn't been merged yet, so it is not part of any release.

Building it from source in an overlay workspace would allow you to use the fixed version immediately.

👍 it would be great to get this merged and released

+1

Could this get merged? I'm not really personally affected by this, but there are a nr of questions popping up on ROS Answers about issues that in the end turn out to be caused by pluginlib giving up because of the missing xml file.

ros/pluginlib#85 mitigates that, but only so much.

pluginlib's fix has been released and synced in lunar. It should make it to the main repo for kinetic in the upcoming sync.

But I agree with @gavanderhoorn it would be really great to get this merged ans released soon 👍

+1

Pardon my ignorance. Has the fix been synced? How do I check if it has?

@eraserpencil: no, it hasn't.

How do I check if it has?

at the very least this PR should have a status merged, instead of open.

@wjwwood: would it be an option to merge this in? With ros/pluginlib#85 merged it's less of an issue in case you don't want to use gmapping, but without manually adding the changes in this PR, the gmapping nodelet of even a source build is unusable.

I am having this same issue:
[ERROR] [1516671310.130156638]: Skipping XML Document "/opt/ros/indigo/share/gmapping/nodelet_plugins.xml" which had no Root Element. This likely means the XML is malformed or missing.

I did not find a solution to this problem, and I use indigo

@gavanderhoorn it is an option, but I'd rather the maintainer handle this (I have too many packages to do this kind of thing on all of them):

lgtm, but I'll leave to @vrabaud to merge and release.

I agree completely, but it seems @vrabaud is a bit busy :)

@gavanderhoorn excuse me,where is gmapping/CMakeLists.txt. I mean, the path of gmapping/CMakeLists.txt. thx!

here?

But know that you won't find it if you installed gmapping using apt-get.

@gavanderhoorn got it. thx!!!! : )

wjwwood: would it be an option to merge this in? With ros/pluginlib#85 merged it's less of an issue in case you don't want to use gmapping, but without manually adding the changes in this PR, the gmapping nodelet of even a source build is unusable.

I got green light from @vrabaud to merge and release this, as 1.3.9 is in all active distros I'll release on all of them so that it makes it into the next sync

Released in Indigo, Kinetic and Lunar

@mikaelarguedas You mean is that this problem can be solved by reinstalling ros-indigo?
Problem is:

[ERROR]: Skipping XML Document "/opt/ros/indigo/share/gmapping/nodelet_plugins.xml" which had no Root Element. This likely means the XML is malformed or missing.

Reinstall ros-indigo:

sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-desktop

@QinZiwen: no, you just need to install the upgraded packages that will be made available in the next public sync, or use the shadow repository if you can't wait.

Thanks @mikaelarguedas.

Thanks @gavanderhoorn