Error: renderer for julia:cairo is unavailable

[pluskid]

I got the following error when trying the example in the front page in an IJulia Notebook

using GraphViz
Graph("""
graph graphname {
     // The label attribute can be used to change the label of a node
     a [label="Foo"];
     // Here, the node shape is changed.
     b [shape=box];
     // These edges both have different line properties
     a -- b -- c [color=blue];
     b -- d [style=dotted];
 }
""")

Error: renderer for julia:cairo is unavailable
`writemime` has no method matching writemime(::Base64Pipe, ::MIME{symbol("image/png")}, ::Nothing)

 in writemime at /Users/chiyuan/.julia/v0.3/GraphViz/src/GraphViz.jl:587
 in base64 at base64.jl:125
 in display_dict at /Users/chiyuan/.julia/v0.3/IJulia/src/execute_request.jl:34

julia> versioninfo()
Julia Version 0.3.3
Commit b24213b* (2014-11-23 20:19 UTC)
Platform Info:
  System: Darwin (x86_64-apple-darwin13.3.0)
  CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3720QM CPU @ 2.60GHz
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  BLAS: libopenblas (DYNAMIC_ARCH NO_AFFINITY Sandybridge)
  LAPACK: libopenblas
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-3.3

Do I need to install anything externally? I tried with Pkg.checkout but the same error.

[mlubin]

Also seeing this from juliabox

[mlubin]

Doing some debugging, it looks like GraphViz.last_surface is nothing. Any ideas @Keno?

[Keno]

This usually happens when GraphViz is built without cairo support.

[pluskid]

How to build it WITH cairo support? The Cairo package is already installed.

[Keno]

Depends on how you got the GraphViz binary.

[pluskid]

@Keno What if I got it from HomeBrew?

[Keno]

JuliaPackaging/Homebrew.jl#45, should be fixed now though.

[dehann]

Hi,

I'm having a similar problem but on Ubuntu 14.04, however the same code works on a 12.04 system. The initial indications are writemime and Cairo.jl related. I initially filed an issue there:

JuliaGraphics/Cairo.jl#109 and #18 (sorry for repeated posts).

I'm trying to draw a Graphs.jl with GraphViz.jl -- this works fine on 0.3.8, 0.3.10, 0.4-dev+5933 (12.04) but not 0.4-dev+5933 on 14.04.

julia> GraphViz.Graph(to_dot(g))

Error: renderer for julia:cairo is unavailable

MethodError: writemime has no method matching writemime(::Base.Base64.Base64EncodePipe, ::Base.Multimedia.MIME{symbol("image/png")}, ::Void)
Closest candidates are:
writemime(::IO, !Matched::AbstractString, ::Any)
writemime(::IO, !Matched::Base.Multimedia.MIME{symbol("text/plain")}, ::Any)
writemime(::IO, ::Base.Multimedia.MIME{symbol("image/png")}, !Matched::Cairo.CairoSurface)
...

in writemime at /home/dehann/.julia/v0.4/GraphViz/src/GraphViz.jl:590

More info

I'm working from IJulia notebook and there are 5 packages of interest:

    Cairo 0.2.28
    Gadfly 0.3.13
    GraphViz 0.0.4
    Graphs 0.5.5
    IJulia 0.2.5

julia> versioninfo()
Julia Version 0.4.0-dev+5933
Commit b2528a6 (2015-07-12 17:39 UTC)
Platform Info:
  System: Linux (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)
  CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           E5620  @ 2.40GHz
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  BLAS: libopenblas (USE64BITINT DYNAMIC_ARCH NO_AFFINITY Nehalem)
  LAPACK: libopenblas
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-3.3

thanks,
dehann

[bvdmitri]

This issue pops up again JuliaLang/julia#56150
https://github.com/ReactiveBayes/RxInfer.jl/actions/runs/12465126070/job/34791309662

[bvdmitri]

Can it be reopened? It is easily reproduced with the code from runtests.jl

julia> using GraphViz, Cairo, Test

julia> let g = dot"""
       graph graphname {
            // The label attribute can be used to change the label of a node
            a [label="Foo"];
            // Here, the node shape is changed.
            b [shape=box];
            // These edges both have different line properties
            a -- b -- c [color=blue];
            b -- d [style=dotted];
        }
       """
           @test_nowarn show(IOBuffer(), MIME"image/svg+xml"(), g)
           @test_nowarn show(IOBuffer(), MIME"image/png"(), g)
       end
ERROR: MethodError: no method matching show(::IOBuffer, ::MIME{Symbol("image/png")}, ::Nothing)
The function `show` exists, but no method is defined for this combination of argument types.

Closest candidates are:
  show(::IO, ::MIME{Symbol("image/png")}, ::GraphViz.Graph)
   @ GraphViz ~/.julia/packages/GraphViz/IsUMl/src/cairo.jl:94
  show(::IO, ::MIME{Symbol("image/png")}, ::CairoSurface)
   @ Cairo ~/.julia/packages/Cairo/FQrbN/src/Cairo.jl:459
  show(::IO, ::MIME{Symbol("text/plain")}, ::Any)
   @ Base multimedia.jl:47
  ...

Stacktrace:
 [1] show(io::IOBuffer, m::MIME{Symbol("image/png")}, x::GraphViz.Graph)
   @ GraphViz ~/.julia/packages/GraphViz/IsUMl/src/cairo.jl:98
 [2] #4
   @ ~/.julia/juliaup/julia-1.11.2+0.aarch64.apple.darwin14/share/julia/stdlib/v1.11/Test/src/Test.jl:924 [inlined]
 [3] (::Base.RedirectStdStream)(thunk::var"#4#8"{GraphViz.Graph}, stream::IOStream)
   @ Base ./stream.jl:1464
 [4] #3
   @ ~/.julia/juliaup/julia-1.11.2+0.aarch64.apple.darwin14/share/julia/stdlib/v1.11/Test/src/Test.jl:923 [inlined]
 [5] open(::var"#3#7"{GraphViz.Graph}, ::String, ::Vararg{String}; kwargs::@Kwargs{})
   @ Base ./io.jl:410
 [6] open(::Function, ::String, ::String)
   @ Base ./io.jl:407
 [7] macro expansion
   @ ~/.julia/juliaup/julia-1.11.2+0.aarch64.apple.darwin14/share/julia/stdlib/v1.11/Test/src/Test.jl:922 [inlined]
 [8] top-level scope
   @ REPL[2]:13

julia> versioninfo()
Julia Version 1.11.2
Commit 5e9a32e7af2 (2024-12-01 20:02 UTC)
Build Info:
  Official https://julialang.org/ release
Platform Info:
  OS: macOS (arm64-apple-darwin24.0.0)
  CPU: 11 × Apple M3 Pro
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LLVM: libLLVM-16.0.6 (ORCJIT, apple-m2)
Threads: 1 default, 0 interactive, 1 GC (on 5 virtual cores)

julia>