caustics example fails to work under 3.6 & 3.4.1, fine under 3.3.0

[crz06-CK]

whilst trying to run the caustics_optimization inverse rendering tutorial, i get error under version 3.6.0 that can be resolved going back to 3.4.1. But also in 3.4.1 the displaced lens geometry seems faulty, as i get RuntimeError: ​[PLYMesh] Error while loading PLY file "lens_displaced.ply": mesh contains invalid vertex position data!

It al works fine in 3.3.0, so what changed? or is it me? I did a clean install recently, and is it related to dependencies?

btw, the error is

TypeError: look_at(): incompatible function arguments. The following argument types are supported:
    1. look_at(self, origin: mitsuba.ScalarPoint3f, target: mitsuba.ScalarPoint3f, up: mitsuba.ScalarPoint3f) -> mitsuba.ScalarTransform4f

Invoked with types: kwargs = { target: list, origin: list, up: list }

when debugging, i notice that the displacement loop outputs:

apply_displacement called
New positions range: [-45.0, -45.0, -45.0, -45.0, -45.0, .. 102390 skipped .., -1.967012394743506e-06, -1.967012394743506e-06, -1.967012394743506e-06, -1.967012394743506e-06, -1.967012394743506e-06] [1.967012394743506e-06, 1.967012394743506e-06, 1.967012394743506e-06, 1.967012394743506e-06, 1.967012394743506e-06, .. 102390 skipped .., 45.0, 45.0, 45.0, 45.0, 45.0]
Calling apply_displacement at iteration 1
apply_displacement called
New positions range: [nan, nan, nan, nan, nan, .. 102390 skipped .., nan, nan, nan, nan, nan] [nan, nan, nan, nan, nan, .. 102390 skipped .., nan, nan, nan, nan, nan]
Calling apply_displacement at iteration 2
apply_displacement called
New positions range: [nan, nan, nan, nan, nan, .. 102390 skipped .., nan, nan, nan, nan, nan] [nan, nan, nan, nan, nan, .. 102390 skipped .., nan, nan, nan, nan, nan]

The displacement map texture (displacement_map_texture) produces inf values, which indicates an issue with:

The texture data (params['data']).
The texture evaluation logic with lens_si.uv.

[merlinND]

Hello @crz06-CK,

Could you please check Issue #1440, i.e. making sure that you have the latest version of the tutorial notebook?
Feel free to reopen if you are really encountering a different problem.

[crz06-CK]

I missed that post, sorry about that. Before reading your reply, I went back to 3.3.0 and required dependencies. This worked fine in the past. I run the tutorial. Odly, when I run the "wave" example now, the code gives no error, yet the lens displacement is not processes as it should. See example printscreen after 1000 iterations. The "sunday" example works just fine.
it is related to the displacement map texture (displacement_map_texture) produces inf values.. Kinda clueless how to debug. It's not the driver issues are mentioned in the other post, I can run the "hello world" example just fine