Some time back, I made the switch from catkin_make to catkin_tools. For the most part, everything works fine. However, my custom plugins are no longer found. Let me emphasize that my plugins (custom displays for RVIZ) work perfectly when I compile with catkin_make and source {catkin_ws}/devel/setup.sh, so I do not believe the problem lies with my package.xml, plugin_description.xml or my use of the pluginlib macro.

I created a debug profile using catkin tools with suffix 'debug'. The workspace extends /opt/ros/indigo. My bashrc file source /opt/ros/indigo/setup.sh, so by default only installed ros packages are listed by rospack list. After running catkin build and sourcing <catkin_ws>/devel_debug/setup.sh, rospack list also shows my packages and I am able to run any of my nodes using rosrun.

However, if I try to load my plugin, only the library file created by catkin_make gets used. If I delete that file and then try to load my plugin in rviz, I can see my plugin in the list of available displays to add, but if I select it, I get this error:

[ERROR] [1484345587.322954842]: PluginlibFactory: The plugin for class 'visualization/Path' failed to load.  Error: Could not find library corresponding to plugin visualization/Path. Make sure the plugin description XML file has the correct name of the library and that the library actually exists.

This happens even after I source the setup.sh file in my debug profile.

I can confirm that my plugin's library file exists in <catkin_ws>/devel_debug/lib with the same name that I have specified in plugin_description.xml.

In order to debug this, I wrote my own test program that displays relevant information using pluginlib::ClassLoader. Running it in the same terminal that yielded the above rviz error, I learn the following information:

• My package's plugin_description.xml file is listed as one of the paths to xml manifests for base class rviz::Display
• My plugin is listed as a declared class type for base class rviz::Display
• The name, class type, package, description, and manifest path for my class are all retrievable
• The path to my library is reported as devel/lib/libpath.so (before deleting that file) and throws the same error as rviz (after)

Having concluded that the problem was pluginlib not seeing my libraries, I looked at the source for pluginlib::ClassLoader to see what paths are searched for libraries. Catkin libraries appear to be found via the command catkin_find --lib. Running the command myself returns the following paths:

• <catkin_ws>/devel_debug/.private/catkin_tools_prebuild/lib
• <catkin_ws>/devel/lib
• /opt/ros/indigo/lib

The 2nd and 3rd paths make sense, but I don't understand why the first is reported rather than the correct directory (<catkin_ws>/devel_debug/lib). For the time being, I've switched back to catkin_make, but I would really like to move back to catkin build if possible.

Is catkin_tools compatible with pluginlib? If so, do I need to change some setting, or update some package, or do something else? Any help would be greatly appreciated!