mindmap fails to render with null reference exception (Graphviz problem?)

Question

Trying to get MindMaps to render on my Archlinux box. The test diagram is:

@startmindmap
* Demo
** Hardware
** Software
@endmindmap

I get the following:

java.lang.NullPointerException
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.mindmap.FingerImpl.<init>(FingerImpl.java:128)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.mindmap.FingerImpl.build(FingerImpl.java:105)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.mindmap.MindMapDiagram.computeFinger(MindMapDiagram.java:170)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.mindmap.MindMapDiagram.drawMe(MindMapDiagram.java:147)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.mindmap.MindMapDiagram.access$000(MindMapDiagram.java:68)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.mindmap.MindMapDiagram$1.drawU(MindMapDiagram.java:110)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.ugraphic.ImageBuilder.getFinalDimension(ImageBuilder.java:301)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.ugraphic.ImageBuilder.writeImageInternal(ImageBuilder.java:217)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.ugraphic.ImageBuilder.writeImageTOBEMOVED(ImageBuilder.java:180)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.mindmap.MindMapDiagram.exportDiagramInternal(MindMapDiagram.java:103)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.UmlDiagram.exportDiagramNow(UmlDiagram.java:200)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.AbstractPSystem.exportDiagram(AbstractPSystem.java:135)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.PSystemUtils.exportDiagramsDefault(PSystemUtils.java:156)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.PSystemUtils.exportDiagrams(PSystemUtils.java:99)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.SourceFileReaderAbstract.getGeneratedImages(SourceFileReaderAbstract.java:159)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.Run.manageFileInternal(Run.java:520)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.Run.processArgs(Run.java:404)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.Run.manageAllFiles(Run.java:372)
        at net.sourceforge.plantuml.Run.main(Run.java:188)

Version Details:

PlantUML version 1.2019.11 (Sun Sep 22 20:02:15 AEST 2019)
(GPL source distribution)
Java Runtime: OpenJDK Runtime Environment
JVM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM
Java Version: 12.0.2+10
Operating System: Linux
Default Encoding: UTF-8
Language: en
Country: AU
Machine: vaio
PLANTUML_LIMIT_SIZE: 4096
Processors: 4
Max Memory: 1,008,730,112
Total Memory: 65,011,712
Free Memory: 59,927,376
Used Memory: 5,084,336
Thread Active Count: 1

The environment variable GRAPHVIZ_DOT has not been set
Dot executable is /usr/bin/dot
Dot version: dot - graphviz version 2.42.1 (0)
Installation seems OK. File generation OK

I am able to render test sequence diagrams, which I believe also require GraphViz. 

But I also have similar problems with WBS diagrams.

Are there known issues with the 2.42.1 version of graphviz I have installed?

Thanks.
Ash.

Answer 1

It seems that there is an issue with your plantuml.jar file.

I guess that the folder "/skin" is missing inside.

Can you doublecheck this ? Where did you get the plantuml.jar file ? Did you build yourself ?

Comments

Hi,

Thanks for the quick response!

I installed using the Archlinux AUR package (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/plantuml) which downloads the plantuml source code archive from source forge and builds it (using ant dist). 

It appears that I get a broken /skin folder. I actually get /skin/skin/skin/[fileshere]. 

I am able to replace the .jar file with one directly downloaded and it works correctly. So that is definitely the issue.

If I extract the files from http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/plantuml/1.2019.11/plantuml-1.2019.11.tar.gz (sha256 432c5b1f2a96a7a8195c04f99d11fe95a9d5f2b179788e34abec6b49456f2b37) I see that it has the same layers of /skin/skin/skin in the top level folder. 

So the problem seems to be coming from this source archive.

Thanks,
Ash

---

Thanks for the feedback : we are going to fix that.

The issue is probably on our ant build script.

Regards,