Building PDFs error: \pdfendlink ended up in different nesting level than \pd

[Moving thread[1] from openjade-devel to pgsql-docs, since the PDF
build is now blowing up in pdfTeX]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Josh Kupershmidt <schmiddy(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> though after a few minutes, I get problems from pdfTeX:
>> [snip]
>> ! pdfTeX error (ext4): \pdfendlink ended up in different nesting level than \pd
>> fstartlink.
>
> We've seen cases of that before too:
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-docs/2010-07/msg00083.php
>
> although you might be seeing a different cause since the context looks a
> bit different.

Looks like the same type of error alright. Though I'm building from a
recent git master checkout, and I see the hack was put in place a few
months ago in installation.sgml to convert a troublesome table into a
list. Also, I get the same error on both the -A4 and -US pdf builds.

How did you figure out that the problem was coming from that spot in
installation.sgml? I'd be interested to see whether another hack would
work in lieu of an actual fix in pdftex.

> FWIW, the issue mentioned at
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-docs/2010-04/msg00022.php
> is overflow of the TeX string table, which I doubt has anything
> to do with the "flow object not accepted by port" problem.  We've
> seen that one happening off and on for years, and nobody really
> has the faintest idea what makes it come or go.

Yeah, I didn't think that was related to the problems I saw, but I
thought it was worth trying to tweak texmf.cnf anyway.

What versions of pdftex are folks who can build these PDFs using? And
is anyone able to build either postgres-A4.pdf or postgres-US.pdf on
Ubuntu or Debian-ish distros using the standard packages? pdftex
--version says for me:

pdfTeX 3.1415926-1.40.10-2.2 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)
kpathsea version 5.0.0
...
Compiled with libpng 1.2.44; using libpng 1.2.44
Compiled with zlib 1.2.3.4; using zlib 1.2.3.4
Compiled with poppler version 0.14.2

Josh

--
[1] original thread on openjade-devel:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=26959520