Unable to send navigational goals on own robot

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I am unable to send simple navigational goals to my own (physical) robot, with the following specs:

It runs diamondback on an internal computer, and ROS commands go directly to its motor controllers. I use a myrobot.launch file for this. In addition, I use an empty map server node, and a move base node very similar to the one in stage's navigation tutorial. The move base node has its static_map parameters both set to false. I can see a move_base/goal and move_base_simple/goal in rostopic list.

Now, if I build simple_navigation_goals.cpp and send the goal of moving 1 m forward, the Action client waits forever for the server to come up. (This doesn't happen with, for example,when I run simulations on gazebo / stage, when I am promptly able to connect to the action server and see the result.) This may sound silly, but when I comment out the stageros node in move_base_amcl_10cm.launch in stage navigation tutorial, I get the same effect as above - the client waits forever for the server to come up. Note that without the stageros node, move_base_amcl.launch looks very much like my map-server + move_base combination.

I am unable to make sense of what's happening and would like to know how to connect with move_base action server.

Update after Eric's comment:

map server : move base launch file

Our costmap files : Base local planner Global costmap Local costmap Costmap common params

Also, rostopic pub to move_base/goal or move_base_simple/goal hangs after latching the message.