Troubleshooting

Drone Not Responding

Symptom: get_state returns stale data or times out.

Check:

docker logs micro_agent_service   # DDS agent connected?
docker logs drone_core_node       # Services registered?

Fix: Restart in order: PX4 → micro_agent → drone_core → rosbridge

"Already Armed" Error

Symptom: Arm command fails because the drone is already armed from a previous session.

Fix: This is non-fatal. The drone is armed and ready. Proceed with offboard and position commands.

Drone Stuck in Bad State

Symptom: Drone won't accept commands, nav_state shows unexpected mode.

Fix: Restart the PX4 SITL instance. Failsafe flags can get stuck and only clear on restart.

Disk Space Full

Symptom: PX4 SITL fills disk with flight logs (.ulg files).

Fix:

rm -rf PX4-Autopilot/rootfs/*/log/
rm -rf PX4-Autopilot/rootfs/log/

These logs can accumulate to 100+ GB in long simulation sessions.

Camera Feed Not Loading

Symptom: "Loading video stream..." forever in the dashboard.

Check:

# Is web_video_server running?
docker logs sim_camera_node

# Is the camera topic being published?
ros2 topic hz /camera

Fix: Restart ros_gz_bridge first, then sim_camera_node.

rosbridge Connection Refused

Symptom: Frontend shows "Disconnected", drone_control.py can't connect.

Check:

docker logs rosbridge_server
curl -s http://localhost:9090  # Should get a WebSocket upgrade response

Fix: docker restart rosbridge_server

Dispatch Not Firing