Weird ROS_PACKAGE_PATH : find_package cannot find installed packages

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I installed ros-indigo from source in Xubuntu 14.04 and created a catkin workspace following this tutorial: http://wiki.ros.org/indigo/Installati... . I had to use catkin_make_isolated because I had non-catkin packages in my workspace.

I got everything running in general but my ROS_PACKAGE_PATH includes most of the folders in my src directory and some folders in my install-isolated directory. When I add a new package I need to add it manually to ROS_PACKAGE_PATH, because otherwise rosrun cannot find it. This is getting very frustrating and I think it is resulting in several errors I get when trying to run launch files that search for items in packages I might not have added correctly to ROS_PACKAGE_PATH. I would very grateful if anyone could help me to setup my environment correctly! Thank you very much!!

If I run:

source ~/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/setup.bash

printenv | grep ROS

I get

ROS_ROOT=/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros/rosbuild
ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/rbcar_sim/rbcar_gazebo:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/rosbag:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/topic_tools:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/geometry_experimental/tf2_py:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/executive_smach/smach_ros:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/diagnostics/self_test:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/roswtf:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/rostopic:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_tutorials-indigo-devel/rospy_tutorials:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/rosnode:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/image_common/polled_camera:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros-indigo-image-view-1.12.13:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/image_common/camera_info_manager:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/image_transport:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/message_filters:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/filters:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/dynamic_reconfigure:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/diagnostics/diagnostic_common_diagnostics:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/diagnostics/diagnostic_updater:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/diagnostics/diagnostic_aggregator:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/cv_bridge:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/image_pipeline-indigo/camera_calibration:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/rosout:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_tutorials-indigo-devel/roscpp_tutorials:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/pcl_conversions:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/nodelet_core/nodelet:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/robot_model/joint_state_publisher:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/robot_model/collada_parser:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/bond_core/bondpy:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/bond_core/bondcpp:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/roscpp:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm/xmlrpcpp:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/geometric_shapes:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/visualization_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/vision_opencv:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/robot_model/urdf_parser_plugin:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/control_msgs/control_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/trajectory_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/geometry_experimental/tf2:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/geometry_experimental/tf2_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/stereo_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm_msgs/std_srvs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/executive_smach/smach_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/shape_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/pcl_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/map_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/image_geometry:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/image_common/camera_calibration_parsers:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/sensor_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/ros_comm_msgs/rosgraph_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/nav_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/navigation/move_base_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/geometry/kdl_conversions:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/geometry/eigen_conversions:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/geometry_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/diagnostic_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/bond_core/bond:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/common_msgs/actionlib_msgs:/home/ccorti/ros_catkin_ws/src/std_msgs ...