gmapping: "Skipping XML Document..."

edit

update: PR#56 was merged, new version of gmapping is in the shadow repository and should be available in the regular repositories after the next sync.

This is probably ros-perception/slam_gmapping#55.

Can you verify there is a nodelet_plugins.xml in the /opt/ros/indigo/share/gmapping directory?

If not, that is the cause. The CMakeLists.txt is not install(..)ing that file (at least in the current version), which makes things work in a devel space, but not in an install space. As the binary pkgs contain only install(..)ed artefacts, nodelet_plugins.xml is missing from those.

This seems to have been introduced in ros-perception/slam_gmapping#41, which added the nodelet version of gmapping.

Why would pointcloud_to_laserscan be looking for a file in slam_gmapping?

it isn't. It looks that way, but in reality the rospkg plugin infrastructure is just iterating over all ROS pkgs it knows and trying to load the nodelet_plugins.xml file that gmapping has listed in its package manifest.

You just happen to be starting pointcloud_to_laserscan.

Can we safely ignore this?

Yes. If you're not intending to use the nodelet version of gmapping, you should be fine.

Edit: I've submitted a PR to fix this: ros-perception/slam_gmapping#56. Note that gmapping will have to go through a full release cycle before the binaries on the repositories contain this fix.