# Failed to Place Nodes from Different Clusters in the Same Rank

**URL:** <https://forum.graphviz.org/t/failed-to-place-nodes-from-different-clusters-in-the-same-rank/3321>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [March 10, 2026, 2:30am UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/failed-to-place-nodes-from-different-clusters-in-the-same-rank/3321 "2026-03-10T02:30:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![The\_book](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b2d939/32.png) [@The\_book](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/The_book)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2026, 2:30am UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/failed-to-place-nodes-from-different-clusters-in-the-same-rank/3321/1 "2026-03-10T02:30:06Z")

</div>

I created a minimal example, but the errors are inconsistent, so I’m not sure if the issue is the same.

[dot verbose=true]

digraph {  
rankdir=TB;

```auto
subgraph cluster_A {
    A
    A->A1
}

subgraph cluster_B {
    B
    B->B1
}

subgraph cluster_C {
    C
    C->C1
}
{rank=same;A;B;C;}

```

}

[/dot]  
Error: install\_in\_rank, line 1283: GD\_rank(g)[0].v + ND\_order(%0) [1] \> GD\_rank(g)[0].av + GD\_rank(Root)[0].an [4]

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![steveroush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9adbd/32.png) [@steveroush](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/steveroush)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2026, 2:50am UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/failed-to-place-nodes-from-different-clusters-in-the-same-rank/3321/2 "2026-03-10T02:50:11Z")

</div>

Dot will not honor **rank=same** across multiple clusters unless you set **newrank=true**.  
Unfortunately, this seems to be documented _only_ in the **newrank** documentation ([newrank | Graphviz](https://www.graphviz.org/docs/attrs/newrank/))

`For example, a node cannot be in a cluster and also be constrained by rank=same with a node not in the cluster.`