Troubleshooting: Missing ROS2 Topics in Isaac Sim on Windows 11 with WSL

Omniverse Isaac Sim
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Hello everyone,

I have installed Isaac Sim on Windows 11 and am trying to connect it with a ROS2 Humble distribution installed in WSL2. According to NVIDIA’s installation guide, this integration should be possible (refer to the guide here: NVIDIA Isaac Sim Installation Guide). However, despite following the guide meticulously, the topics are not appearing as expected.

I have ensured that the correct ports are open between Windows and WSL2, but I’m still facing issues. One area of uncertainty is how to set the environment variable FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE within the “Extra Args” field on Windows 11.

I have verified that I can successfully ping both ways between Windows and WSL2 so i dont think networking is the issue.

If anyone has a comprehensive guide or can provide step-by-step instructions on how to achieve this setup, I would greatly appreciate your help.

Thank you!

Isaac Sim Version

4.2.0
4.1.0
4.0.0
2023.1.1
2023.1.0-hotfix.1
Other (please specify):

Operating System

Ubuntu 22.04
Ubuntu 20.04
Windows 11
Windows 10
Other (please specify):

1 Like
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Hey @exb Welcome to the community!
When you run the Isaac Sim App Selector, it has a field “Extra Args” where you can set the environment variable FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE

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Yes but as i am working in windows do i need to set this? And what would be the exact command be? I feel like i have tried both with “export” as i would in ubuntu and with “set” as i would in windows. Still no topics showing up.

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Did you enable ros2_bridge extension from the Isaac Sim?

It would be more helpful if you can share what you have done step by step and if there is any error you have seen during set up

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Hello,
I just wanted to ask whether you had any success setting this up, as I am having the same problem.

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Unfortunately not. As i have methodically tried everything in the guide i linked to (without succes) i have concluded that is must be due to some company restirctions on either our network or on our pc’s. So for now i have abandoned the pursuit.

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Hey @magic_genius! Could you please provide more information on your issue?

1 Like
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Hello,
thanks a lot for your answer. Here is what I tried:
I installed WSL2 on the windows machine and then installed ROS 2 Humble on WSL2.
I cloned the Isaac Sim Ros workspace in WSL2 and ran export FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE=<path_to_ros2_ws>/fastdds.xmlin the WSL2 terminal. I also made sure that ROS is sourced in the WSL2 Terminal.

On windows I started Isaac Sim using the app selector with Ros2 bridge enabled and humble selected as the internal ROS2 library.

Similiar like other people I wasn’t exactly sure what to put in the Extra Args field if I run Isaac Sim on windows and ROS2 on WSL2. I tried both keeping the field empty but also referencing export FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE=~/.ros/fastdds.xmland export FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE=<path_to_ros2_ws>/fastdds.xml where I stated the path to my installation in linux under <path_to_ros2_ws>.

I set up port forwarding between the windows ipv4 adress and the WSL2 hostname, like described in the documentation. And verified that the rule has been applied:

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However when I set up the graph according to the turtlebot tutorial ( Driving TurtleBot via ROS2 messages — Omniverse IsaacSim) and run the simulation, I am not able to see the cmd_vel topic in WSL2.

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Hey @magic_genius!

Did you download Isaac Sim ROS workspace? If you downloaded it, for <path_to_ros2_ws> you can set it to the path to IsaacSim-ros_workspaces/humble_ws.

Even though you selected ros2_bridge in the app selector, please also make sure to navigate to window->extensions and search for ros2_bridge and make sure it is enabled.

After that, without running anything in Isaac Sim, you are expected to see topics /parameter_events and /rosout from WSL2 terminal.

If not, could you please double check if your networking mode in WSL2 is NAT? Also try disable the firewall in the settings.

1 Like
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Hey @zhengwang,
first of all thanks a lot for your help!

Yes I have downloaded the Ros workspace in WSL. But since I am starting Isaac Sim from Windows I am not sure which path to specify in the extra args field. Is it the path to humble on WSL i.e “\home\user\IsaacSim-ros_workspaces” or is it the path to the installation of ros as seen from windows i.e “\\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-22.04\home\user\IsaacSim-ros_workspaces”?

I also made sure that the ros2 bridge is enabled via window->extensions

I am also able to see the Ros topics /rosout and /parameter_events in WSL2 without running anything in Isaac sim.

The problem arises when I try setting up a graph according to the turtlebot example ( Driving TurtleBot via ROS2 messages — Omniverse IsaacSim). When I run the simulation from Isaac Sim I am not able to see the cmd_vel topic in WSL

image

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I also checked with wslinfo --networking-mod that my networking mode ist nat.

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Please refer to this environment variable configurations.

set ROS_DOMAIN_ID=42
set ROS_DISTRO=humble
set RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp
set FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE=F:\Work\.ros\fastdds.xml
set isaac_sim_package_path=%userprofile%\AppData\Local\ov\pkg\isaac-sim-4.2.0
set PATH=%PATH%;%isaac_sim_package_path%\exts\omni.isaac.ros2_bridge\humble\lib
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I accessfully set this up in Isaac Sim 4.5.0. Note that enabling the ROS2 Bridge extenion requires referencing the “Multiple Machines” tab in the “Enabling the ROS Bridge Extension” section, specifically regarding setting the FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE variable.

1 Like
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Great to hear!! I will try that out as well and get back with the results!

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