regression: graphviz package does not configure plugins

[Richard Hansen]

graphviz 2.36.0-0ubuntu3 in trusty:

$ dot -O -Tps foo.dot
Format: "ps" not recognized. Use one of:
$ dot -P
There is no layout engine support for "dot"
Perhaps "dot -c" needs to be run (with installer's privileges) to register the plugins?

This same problem has been reported before in bug #1270025, but either there was a regression or 2.36.0-0ubuntu2 never actually fixed the problem.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Lars (larsmans)]

Confirmed. My dot didn't work at all until I ran sudo dot -c.

Now I have a config file at /usr/lib/graphviz/config6 (instead of /etc) that isn't owned by any package.

[Keith Welter (welterkj)]

The 'sudo dot -c' workaround did not work for me on trusty. However, the following resolved my problem:
sudo apt-get purge libgvc6
sudo apt-get install libgvc6
sudo apt-get install graphviz

[andreh (andre-holzner)]

I had the same problem (as described in the first posting), sudo dot -c worked for me on Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS Trusty (tested with png and ps).

[Erik Lattimore (elatt)]

I'm having the same problem. The machine was upgraded from 12.04 to 14.04 via do-release-upgrade. The package was upgrade from 2.26.3-10ubuntu1.2 to 2.36.0-0ubuntu3.1.

[anatoly techtonik (techtonik)]

Still a problem on Ubuntu 20.10 and graphviz 2.43.0

# dot -Tpng
Format: "png" not recognized. Use one of:
root@repodraw:~/repodraw# dot -c
root@repodraw:~/repodraw# dot -v
dot - graphviz version 2.43.0 (0)
There is no layout engine support for "dot"
Perhaps "dot -c" needs to be run (with installer's privileges) to register the plugins?

[anatoly techtonik (techtonik)]

That was a problem with LXD container. There is no such error anymore, so I believe this bug is fixed in recent Ubuntu versions.

[anatoly techtonik (techtonik)]

If anybody wants details on LXD bug - they are here https://github.com/lxc/lxd/issues/8490#issuecomment-782596277