Gazebo crashes when <max_contacts> is zero in ODE, does nothing in bullet

Original report (archived issue) by Shane Loretz (Bitbucket: Shane Loretz, GitHub: sloretz).

The original report had attachments: zero_contacts.world

Using ODE and setting max_contacts on the collision element causes gazebo to immediately exit when a collision happens. Nothing is printed to the console. The gazebo exit code is 255. Example world is attached.

$ gazebo --verbose --pause -e ode zero_contacts.world
Gazebo multi-robot simulator, version 7.5.0
Copyright (C) 2012 Open Source Robotics Foundation.
Released under the Apache 2 License.
http://gazebosim.org

Gazebo multi-robot simulator, version 7.5.0
Copyright (C) 2012 Open Source Robotics Foundation.
Released under the Apache 2 License.
http://gazebosim.org

[Msg] Waiting for master.
[Msg] Waiting for master.
[Msg] Connected to gazebo master @ http://127.0.0.1:11345
[Msg] Connected to gazebo master @ http://127.0.0.1:11345
[Msg] Publicized address: 172.17.0.3
[Msg] Publicized address: 172.17.0.3
$ echo $?
255

Using bullet there appears to be no change to how the model collides with objects.

I'd expect either

a collision with max_contacts set to zero does not collide with anything
or warning that max_contacts cannot be zero when the model is loaded

gazebosim / gazebo-classic

Gazebo crashes when <max_contacts> is zero in ODE, does nothing in bullet #2272