MoveIt! rviz MotionPlanning plugin broken Robot geometry

I followed the Moveit Setup Assistant Tutorial to configure a manipulator for use with MoveIt. I did - load the URDF/Xacro file - set the virtual joint - add a planning group - define a robot pose - generate the configuration files without problems. I left out the end effector part, because I do not have a real end effector. The manipulator has three DOF. Now, when I start the demo.launch file rviz starts up, but the robot geometry is broken. The position of every link under "MotionPlanning->Scene Robot" is [0,0,0] and its orientation is set to some obviously incorrect value. Metaphorically speaking, the robot in rviz consists of a heap of links (robot parts). Furthermore, I am missing the interactive markers. Searching the web the missing markers relate to the message "No active joints or end effectors found for group ''." which I receive during the launch of rviz and which I cannot get rid of. I have tested my xacro file with gazebo and it works flawlessly. Following my SRDF file: And the relevant output during launch of rviz: [ INFO] [1510658130.699292603]: MoveGroup context using planning plugin ompl_interface/OMPLPlanner [ INFO] [1510658130.699318489]: MoveGroup context initialization complete You can start planning now! libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile [ INFO] [1510658134.100829824]: Loading robot model 'mugator_manip'... [ INFO] [1510658134.548891308]: Starting scene monitor [ INFO] [1510658134.554074274]: Listening to '/move_group/monitored_planning_scene' [ INFO] [1510658134.875040587]: No active joints or end effectors found for group ''. Make sure you have defined an end effector in your SRDF file and that kinematics.yaml is loaded in this node's namespace. [ INFO] [1510658134.875249162]: No active joints or end effectors found for group 'manipulator'. Make sure you have defined an end effector in your SRDF file and that kinematics.yaml is loaded in this node's namespace. [ INFO] [1510658134.876849619]: No active joints or end effectors found for group 'manipulator'. Make sure you have defined an end effector in your SRDF file and that kinematics.yaml is loaded in this node's namespace. [ INFO] [1510658134.877298190]: Constructing new MoveGroup connection for group 'manipulator' in namespace '' [ INFO] [1510658136.007301565]: Ready to take commands for planning group manipulator. [ INFO] [1510658136.007387218]: Looking around: no [ INFO] [1510658136.007429894]: Replanning: no Any help is appreciated.