# Dot is no longer my friend. What can I do? (10h SVG Render Process)

**URL:** <https://forum.graphviz.org/t/dot-is-no-longer-my-friend-what-can-i-do-10h-svg-render-process/3062>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [July 2, 2025, 11:09am UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/dot-is-no-longer-my-friend-what-can-i-do-10h-svg-render-process/3062 "2025-07-02T11:09:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 12

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**Author:** ![steveroush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9adbd/32.png) [@steveroush](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/steveroush)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 11:43pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/dot-is-no-longer-my-friend-what-can-i-do-10h-svg-render-process/3062/12 "2025-07-03T23:43:10Z")

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Here is another [case](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/segfault-during-a-rendering-of-a-tree/2740) where (misused) **minlen** caused grief.  
Dot is challenged by graphs with many ranks (thousands, tens of thousands).  
Sometimes they are “real” ranks (many nodes & many of edges), sometimes “kind of real” ranks (virtual nodes added for edge labels), and sometimes “possibly avoidable?” ranks (virtual nodes & edges added just to pad out the **minlen** value) . As in the two graphs mentioned above.  
It would seem possible to remove “unnecessary” virtual nodes & edges for phase 3 (2nd network simplex) and then restore them afterwards.

Here is a tiny example of **minlen** gone bad (core dump):

```auto
/***
goal: - a graph that would calse phase=3 performance problems
***/
digraph tall{
  edge[minlen=50000]
  a -> {b c d e f}
  edge[minlen=50500]  
  b -> {g h i}
}

```

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