Why does the online server render my diagrams correctly while the offline version does not?

Question

Hi, my diagrams should look like this.

So rather small arrows connecting the different activities from top to bottom.

When I render this plantuml code using plantuml.1.2021.8.jar on my Debian 10 system with

dot -V
dot - graphviz version 2.40.1 (20161225.0304)

I can only get graphs with much too long down arrows regardless of the output format of either svg or png as shown here: https://ibb.co/9H1h7SF

How can I help to debug this further or is there a known problem/workaround?

Answer 1

Hello J.,

The only different seems to be the version of GraphViz:

• your offline version on : graphviz version 2.40.1 (20161225.0304)
• the online server on :    graphviz version 2.38.0 (20140413.2041)

See : Version on Online server

Could you downgrade to this old version (2.38) or upgrade to version (2.44)?
See this reco.: https://plantuml.com/graphviz-dot#6f41784ab1fa4554

Then perhaps you can test also without GraphViz, by adding this line on your code :

!pragma layout smetana

or if you have ELK on your offline version:

!pragma layout elk

See documentation here:

• https://plantuml.com/smetana02
• https://plantuml.com/elk

If that can help,
Regard,
Th.

Comments

!pragma layout smetana

fixes the issue for me. Thanks for the suggestion.