Service call invokes bad allocation when called from a separate docker container

[anastasiapan]

I have created a service (custom) that receives a custom message and runs in a ros2 node using fast-DDS. The node is running in a docker container and every time I call the service from the same container it works fine. Whenever I call it from a different container the node crushes with std::bad_alloc.

System information

• Hardware: Jetson nano/laptop
• OS: Ubuntu 18.04(Jetson nano) and Ubuntu 20.04(laptop)
• ROS2: foxy

Custom messages and service:

Service: SendPath.srv

capra_ros_path_msgs/AnnotatedPath path
---
bool success   # indicate successful run of
string message # a more verbose message (in case of error)
string uuid    # An uuid if the path was accepted

Message: AnnotatedPath.msg

std_msgs/Header header

# Longitute, Latitude, Heading
uint8 GLOBAL_POSITIONING=0
# x, y, theta
uint8 LOCAL_POSITIONING=1

# Timestamp
# <YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS>
string timestamp

# Path uuid
string path_uuid

# Map uuid
string map_uuid

# Position encoding
uint8 position_encoding 0

# Nodes
capra_ros_path_msgs/Node[] nodes

# Edges
capra_ros_path_msgs/Edge[] edges

Message: Node.msg

# uuid
string uuid

# Sequence number
uint64 sequence_number

# Position
geometry_msgs/Vector3 position

# Actions
capra_ros_path_msgs/Action[] actions

Message: Edge.msg

string uuid

# Start node
string start_node_uuid

# End node
string end_node_uuid

# Actions
capra_ros_path_msgs/Action[] actions

Container arguments:

• Container that the server runs
  From docker-compose:

ros-path-planner:
    image: server_image
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: "host"
    pid: "host"
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-file: "5"
        max-size: "20m"
    volumes:
      - /dev/shm:/dev/shm

If I call the service from within this container the message goes through and I get a response. This is how I construct the message:

ros2 service call send_path capra_ros_path_msgs/srv/SendPath "{path: {path_uuid: "path0", nodes: [{position: {x: 10.1104618, y: 56.106435899999994, z: 115.194}}, {position: {x: 10.1104106, y: 56.1064303, z: 115.145}}, {position: {x: 10.110389699999999, y: 56.106470099999996, z: 115.129}}, {position: {x: 10.110468299999999, y: 56.1064867, z: 115.256}}]}}"

I can also call it with adding the "edges" field:

ros2 service call send_path capra_ros_path_msgs/srv/SendPath "{path: {path_uuid: "path0", nodes: [{position: {x: 10.11, y: 56.10, z: 115.194}}, {position: {x: 10.11, y: 56.3, z: 115.145}}, {position: {x: 10.1, y: 56.1, z: 115.129}}, {position: {x: 10.1, y: 56.1, z: 115.2}}], edges: [{}]}}"

• Different container
  docker run -it --rm --net host --pid host -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm my_container
  This container has my custom interfaces:

ros2 interface show capra_ros_path_msgs/srv/SendPath
capra_ros_path_msgs/AnnotatedPath path
---
bool success   # indicate successful run of
string message # a more verbose message (in case of error)
string uuid    # An uuid if the path was accepted

and I can see it in the service list:

ros2 service list
/send_path

and then I call it in the same way and I get:

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::bad_alloc'
  what():  std::bad_alloc

What I notice is inside build/capra_ros_path_msgs/rosidl_typesupport_fastrtps_cpp/capra_ros_path_msgs/msg/detail/dds_fastrtpsannotated_path__type_support.cpp
inside the edges field of my custom message the size is overflowed. But when I call the service from the same container it is 0 (which is correct since I do not fill that field).

[anastasiapan]

@bjv-capra

[EduPonz]

I think this is the same related to #1698. Have you tried the suggestions there? I see that you were on that discussion too.

[anastasiapan]

I think this is the same related to #1698. Have you tried the suggestions there? I see that you were on that discussion too.

I do not think this is related because I can communicate with the containers. I had opened it when I used a Windows host but this is not the case now. With my setup I have communication between containers - I can see and echo all of the topics and I have some simple services (for example Trigger.srv http://docs.ros.org/en/melodic/api/std_srvs/html/srv/Trigger.html) that work fine.

[pablogs9]

Some questions:

• Can you provide the server code for replicating this issue?
• Where are the dockers running in the Ubuntu 20.04 machine or in the Jetson Nano?

Also, make sure that you have RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp environment variable in both containers and also FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE=PATH_TO/disable_fastdds_shm.xml where disable_fastdds_shm.xml is this file.

[anastasiapan]

Hello thanks for the answers but I have made it work without passing the strings. When switching to cyclone the strings are also passed properly.

[anastasiapan]

I also just noticed that there was some message type missmatch, and that may have caused the entire problem.