ros2 runtime_error ai_generated partial

[WARN] Timer callback took longer than the timer period

ID: ros2/timer-callback-overrun

Also available as: JSON · Markdown
70%Fix Rate
85%Confidence
3Evidence
2023-01-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
2 active — — —

Root Cause

Timer callback execution time exceeds the timer period. Messages pile up and processing lags behind real time.

generic

Workarounds

  1. 88% success Move heavy processing to a separate thread or process 
    Use MultiThreadedExecutor with ReentrantCallbackGroup for parallelism
  2. 85% success Profile the callback and optimize the bottleneck 
    import cProfile; cProfile.runctx('callback(msg)', ...)
  3. 82% success Increase timer period to match actual processing time

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Decrease timer period to catch up on missed callbacks 90% fail

    Makes the problem worse; callbacks pile up even faster

  2. Add a sleep inside the callback to throttle 92% fail

    sleep() blocks the executor, preventing all other callbacks from running