Issue with devcontainer build and make launch-g1-dummy-sim on macOS

[mabdulahmalik]

I tried building the repository using the instructions in the README for the devcontainer setup.

What I did:
Used Ctrl + Shift + P and selected "Dev Containers: Rebuild and Reopen in Container".

However, I encountered errors when trying to execute this command in VS Code.

Workaround:
I used the build and launch scripts shared by moavia90 mentioned in #17, which allowed me to get past the devcontainer startup.

I modified launch_wb_mpc.bash to suit my macOS environment.

Current Status:
The workspace wb_humanoid_mpc builds successfully with PARALLEL_JOBS=1.

Auto-differentiation code generation also works fine.

Problem:
When I run:

make launch-g1-dummy-sim
I get an error related to RViz. Unfortunately, the simulator fails to launch as expected.

System Details:

Device: Apple MacBook Pro

RAM: 16 GB

OS: macOS

Chip: Apple M3 Pro

Please let me know if there's a known workaround for the RViz error or if additional steps are needed for macOS users.

Thanks!

[humanoid_centroidal_mpc_sqp_node-1] [CppAdInterface] Compiling Shared Library: cppad_code_gen/cppad_centroidal_mpc_g1/dynamics_systemFlowMap/cppad_generated/dynamics_systemFlowMap_libcppadcg_tmp1708086.so
[rviz2-6] qt.qpa.xcb: could not connect to display 
[rviz2-6] qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
[rviz2-6] This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
[rviz2-6] 
[rviz2-6] Available platform plugins are: eglfs, linuxfb, minimal, minimalegl, offscreen, vnc, xcb.
[rviz2-6] 
[ERROR] [rviz2-6]: process has died [pid 8091, exit code -6, cmd '/opt/ros/jazzy/lib/rviz2/rviz2 -d /wb_humanoid_mpc_ws/install/humanoid_common_mpc_ros2/share/humanoid_common_mpc_ros2/rviz/humanoid.rviz --ros-args -r __node:=rviz2'].
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (/tmp) is not owned by us (uid 1000), but by uid 0! (This could e.g. happen if you try to connect to a non-root PulseAudio as a root user, over the native protocol. Don't do that.)
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] ALSA lib confmisc.c:855:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] ALSA lib conf.c:5204:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_inum returned error: No such file or directory
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] ALSA lib confmisc.c:422:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] ALSA lib conf.c:5204:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] ALSA lib confmisc.c:1342:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] ALSA lib conf.c:5204:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] ALSA lib conf.c:5727:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] ALSA lib pcm.c:2721:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] pygame 2.5.2 (SDL 2.30.0, Python 3.12.3)
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] Hello from the pygame community. https://www.pygame.org/contribute.html
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] Traceback (most recent call last):
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]   File "/wb_humanoid_mpc_ws/install/remote_control/lib/remote_control/base_velocity_controller_gui", line 33, in <module>
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]     sys.exit(load_entry_point('remote-control', 'console_scripts', 'base_velocity_controller_gui')())
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]   File "/wb_humanoid_mpc_ws/build/remote_control/remote_control/base_velocity_controller_gui.py", line 277, in main
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]     app = RosJoystickApp()
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]   File "/wb_humanoid_mpc_ws/build/remote_control/remote_control/base_velocity_controller_gui.py", line 238, in __init__
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]     self.app = App()
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]                ^^^^^
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]   File "/wb_humanoid_mpc_ws/build/remote_control/remote_control/base_velocity_controller_gui.py", line 43, in __init__
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]     super().__init__()
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]   File "/usr/lib/python3.12/tkinter/__init__.py", line 2345, in __init__
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]     self.tk = _tkinter.create(screenName, baseName, className, interactive, wantobjects, useTk, sync, use)
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7]               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[base_velocity_controller_gui-7] _tkinter.TclError: couldn't connect to display ""
[ERROR] [base_velocity_controller_gui-7]: process has died [pid 8092, exit code 1, cmd '/wb_humanoid_mpc_ws/install/remote_control/lib/remote_control/base_velocity_controller_gui --ros-args -r __node:=base_velocity_controller_gui'].

[manumerous]

Thank you for reporting this issue. We are currently only officially supporting the project on Linux but I think with docker it should be possible to run it without too much of a hassle on Mac as well. The error says it could not connect to the display. I therefore think your container might not have the right permissions to get access to the display. Did you try to add the flags for allowing display forwarding to your docker container?

Is there anything I am missing here @nicholaspalomo?

[nicholaspalomo]

Thanks for opening this issue.
At first glance, it looks like those errors are definitely related to display settings, yah. I need to investigate further to see if I can find a workaround.

Within a week I'm getting a new MacBook and was gonna try running the code on that (from within a Docker container). I'll post an update here if I manage to get the display settings working with that (I think it should be doable).

[Yanxin97]

Thanks for opening this issue. At first glance, it looks like those errors are definitely related to display settings, yah. I need to investigate further to see if I can find a workaround.

Within a week I'm getting a new MacBook and was gonna try running the code on that (from within a Docker container). I'll post an update here if I manage to get the display settings working with that (I think it should be doable).

Hi, I met the same issue and solved it via using xpra to foward the xbox gui and rviz (rviz is troublesome). My pc is macmini pro with m4 chip, Sequoia 15.

[manumerous]

Thank you a lot for sharing this!