And (possibly) related to the above, there are gates at my top level and they get placed over macro blocks:

[INFO]: Running Detailed Placement...                                                                                                                            
[INFO]: current step index: 16                                                                                                                                   
OpenROAD 0.9.0 1415572a73                                                                                                                                        
This program is licensed under the BSD-3 license. See the LICENSE file for details.                                                                              
Components of this program may be licensed under more restrictive licenses which must be honored.                                                                
Notice 0: Reading LEF file:  /project/openlane/user_project_wrapper/runs/user_project_wrapper/tmp/merged_unpadded.lef                                            
Notice 0:     Created 13 technology layers                                                                                                                       
Notice 0:     Created 25 technology vias                                                                                                                         
Notice 0:     Created 450 library cells                                                                                                                          
Notice 0: Finished LEF file:  /project/openlane/user_project_wrapper/runs/user_project_wrapper/tmp/merged_unpadded.lef                                           
Notice 0:                                                                                                                                                        
Reading DEF file: /project/openlane/user_project_wrapper/runs/user_project_wrapper/tmp/placement/13-resizer.def                                                  
Notice 0: Design: user_project_wrapper                                                                                                                           
Notice 0:     Created 645 pins.                                                                                                                                  
Notice 0:     Created 97990 components and 228932 component-terminals.                                                                                           
Notice 0:     Created 8 special nets and 0 connections.                                                                                                          
Notice 0:     Created 4837 nets and 9550 connections.                                                                                                            
Notice 0: Finished DEF file: /project/openlane/user_project_wrapper/runs/user_project_wrapper/tmp/placement/13-resizer.def                                       
Design Stats                                                                                                                                                     
--------------------------------                                                                                                                                 
total instances         97990                                                                                                                                    
multi row instances         0                                                                                                                                    
fixed instances         94222                                                                                                                                    
nets                     4845                                                                                                                                    
design area          10173980.2 u^2                                                                                                                              
fixed area           150705.3 u^2                                                                                                                                
movable area          45095.8 u^2                                                                                                                                
utilization                 0 %                                                                                                                                  
utilization padded          1 %                                                                                                                                  
rows                     1286                                                                                                                                    
row height                2.7 u                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                                                                 
[WARNING DPL-0018] detailed placement failed on repeater1756.                                                                                                    
[WARNING DPL-0018] detailed placement failed on repeater1767.                                                                                                    
[WARNING DPL-0018] detailed placement failed on _2455_.                                                                                                          
[WARNING DPL-0018] detailed placement failed on _2463_.                                                                                                          
[WARNING DPL-0018] detailed placement failed on _2474_.                                                                                                          
[WARNING DPL-0018] detailed placement failed on _2543_.                                                                                                          
[WARNING DPL-0018] detailed placement failed on _2587_.                                                                                                          
[WARNING DPL-0018] detailed placement failed on _2588_.

They are definitely being placed in the middle of my macros...

I recall a while back that Ahmed Ghazy was dealing with the same issue. @Manar Abdelatty should know the answer to that one.

That is useful. I can search for their past conversation maybe in the meantime

Displays cells like what?

just empty. It's like it has the layout but isn't showing it. This is expanded too

Oh, I see what you mean. It appears to have read only labels and nothing else. No, I don't know how it gets that way and I haven't seen that before.

I'm pretty sure it this this option: PL_DIAMOND_SEARCH_HEIGHT Specifies the diamond search height used for legalizing the cells during detailed placement. The search width is calculated internally as heigh*5. For designs that contain big macros, increasing this value to above 400 will allow for more search space and more potentail for successful legalization. (Default: 100) It can't legalize because these are initially placed so far inside the macros that it can't move them outside.