Using the newpxtext package (Palatino typeface) along with \footnote causes PDFTeX to crash without producing a PDF due to a missing font file. The problem is not universal: one Fedora 38 installation I have works fine, two others do not. The following file reproduces the issue if it exists on the machine in question: \documentclass{article} \usepackage{newpxtext} \begin{document} Hello, world!\footnote{this is a footnote} \end{document} Omitting the footnote avoids the problem. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: I am not 100% certain these steps will work; it's my working hypothesis. 1. Upgrade from Fedora 36 directly to Fedora 38 2. Create the file above in a text editor (call it "test.tex", say) 3. run "pdflatex test.tex" Actual Results: Many pdftex warning messages, then !pdfTeX error: pdflatex (file npxsups_t1.enc): cannot open encoding file for re ading ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced! Expected Results: I think the problem is that it's looking for npxsups_t1.enc and the file is npxsups_T1.enc I cannot easily test my hypothesis, but I confirmed that a Fedora 36 -> 38 upgrade for a user who has never used pdftex before that it did happen to him (i.e., it's not something in my local configuration). I can avoid the problem entirely by using "xelatex" instead of "pdflatex" to compile the document.
The "upgrade from Fedora 36 to Fedora 38" step above is not necessary, and in fact the systems that exhibit this bug went from 37 to 38.
I think I figured it out: the key was that I was upgrading from a system that had old, obsolete RPMs from Fedora 34. Specifically, texlive-updmap-map-svn56618-39.fc34.noarch was still installed, and I think removing that fixed the problem. I also removed texlive-texlive-docindex-svn54903-39.fc34.noarch and texlive-obsolete-2020-35.fc33.noarch, but I think it's the updmap one that fixed the problem. I also did a "dnf reinstall texlive-newpx" but I suspect that was probably equivalent to doing a texhash command to rebuild the ls-R database.
I may have inadvertantly blamed the fc34 RPMs above; if I simply do "rm -rf /var/lib/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap" followed by "dnf reinstall texlive-newpx", it seems to solve the problem. It does still give me messages like "pdfTeX warning: pdflatex (file /var/lib/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map): fontmap entry for `rtxptmri' already exists, duplicates ignored"