`joint_state_broadcaster` fails to load with "Couldn't parse trailing --params-file flag. No file path provided." on ROS 2 Jazzy

[lhbmv]

Description

Environment:

• ROS 2 Distribution: Jazzy
• OS: Ubuntu 24.04 (noble) / [your arch, e.g. arm64]
• ros2_control: [e.g. 4.25.0-1noble]
• joint_state_broadcaster: [e.g. 4.25.0-1noble]
• Installed via: apt
• Workspace build: colcon build --symlink-install

Problem:

When launching a minimal ros2_control setup with only joint_state_broadcaster in the controller YAML, the controller fails to load with the following error:

[controller_manager]: Controller 'joint_state_broadcaster' node arguments: --ros-args --params-file 
[controller_manager]: Caught exception of type : N6rclcpp10exceptions22RCLInvalidROSArgsErrorE while initializing controller 'joint_state_broadcaster': failed to parse arguments: Couldn't parse trailing --params-file flag. No file path provided., at ./src/rcl/arguments.c:419

controllers.yaml:

controller_manager:
  ros__parameters:
    update_rate: 50
    joint_state_broadcaster:
      type: joint_state_broadcaster/JointStateBroadcaster

launch file (excerpt):

robot_controllers = PathJoinSubstitution([
    FindPackageShare("planar_robot_description"),
    "config",
    "controllers.yaml"
])
control_node = Node(
    package="controller_manager",
    executable="ros2_control_node",
    parameters=[robot_controllers],
    output="both"
)
joint_state_broadcaster_spawner = Node(
    package="controller_manager",
    executable="spawner",
    arguments=["joint_state_broadcaster"]
)

What I tried:

• Checked YAML formatting, encoding (UTF-8, no BOM), and indentation (spaces only).
• Cleaned and rebuilt workspace (rm -rf build/ install/ log/).
• Used both PathJoinSubstitution and absolute path for the YAML file.
• Confirmed the controller type is available via ros2 control list_controller_types.
• Confirmed hardware and interfaces are available.
• The error persists regardless of these changes.

Expected behavior:
joint_state_broadcaster should load successfully as in previous ROS 2 distributions (e.g. Humble).

Actual behavior:
Controller fails to load due to a missing params file argument, even though the YAML is present and correct.

---

Steps To Reproduce

1. Use the minimal YAML and launch file above in a clean ROS 2 Jazzy workspace.
2. Build and source the workspace.
3. Launch the file:
   ros2 launch planar_robot_description control_only.launch.py
4. Observe the error in the controller_manager logs.

---

Additional Info

• This issue does not occur on ROS 2 Humble or Rolling with the same setup.
• Other controllers (e.g. joint_trajectory_controller) exhibit similar issues.
• This blocks basic usage of ros2_control on Jazzy.

---

Thank you for your help!

[saikishor]

Hello @lhbmv !

It could be that the 4.25.0 of Jazzy had that bug. Could you please update the package to the recent version and try it out?

Thank you