Ghostscript: Stack Underflow Error - ghostscript

Question

I'm trying to generate a PDF from a fairly large PS.
Running:
/usr/bin/ps2pdf -dMaxSubsetPct=100 -dSubsetFonts=true -dEmbedAllFonts=true -dPDFSettings=/printer /home/sls/slspdf.tmp.8bcbd0365c30f4d287e416e8.ps
With result:
Error: /usr/bin/ps2pdf returned code 1: Error: /stackunderflow in --pop--
Operand stack:
Execution stack:
%interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1951 1 3 %oparray_pop 1950 1 3 %oparray_pop 1934 1 3 %oparray_pop 1820 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- %errorexec_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 1 1 5 --nostringval-- %for_pos_int_continue --nostringval-- --nostringval--
Dictionary stack:
--dict:1186/1684(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:132/200(L)-- --dict:29/40(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: Not a directory
Current file position is 797649
GPL Ghostscript 9.15: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1
Throwing it through straight gs (without the ps2pdf wrapper) doesn't yield much usable info either:
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -o test.pdf - < /home/sls/slspdf.tmp.8bcbd0365c30f4d287e416e8.ps
Output:
GPL Ghostscript 9.15 (2014-09-22)
Copyright (C) 2014 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
Can't find (or can't open) font file /usr/share/ghostscript/9.15/Resource/Font/NimbusMonL-Bold.
Can't find (or can't open) font file NimbusMonL-Bold.
Can't find (or can't open) font file /usr/share/ghostscript/9.15/Resource/Font/NimbusMonL-Bold.
Can't find (or can't open) font file NimbusMonL-Bold.
Querying operating system for font files...
Loading NimbusMonL-Bold font from /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n022004l.pfb... 4754536 3291634 8267744 6868788 1 done.
Loading NimbusMonL-Regu font from /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n022003l.pfb... 4797552 3426617 8463168 7042500 2 done.
Error: /stackunderflow in --pop--
Operand stack:
Execution stack:
%interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1951 1 3 %oparray_pop 1950 1 3 %oparray_pop 1934 1 3 %oparray_pop 1820 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- %errorexec_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 1 1 5 --nostringval-- %for_pos_int_continue --nostringval-- --nostringval--
Dictionary stack:
--dict:1180/1684(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:132/200(L)-- --dict:29/40(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: Not a directory
GPL Ghostscript 9.15: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1
The only thing that seems to make this work for me is to physically make the input file smaller... which of course isn't a very acceptable solution. We could however script this up to generate several 'pages' of PDF output and then append them together in a second-pass if that's the best answer. Any thoughts on the root cause here?
I see the bit about Last OS error: Not a directory, is that just the last general last OS error or is that being thrown from Ghostscript in particular? Seems it's generic since truncating the file makes it work, but I've no idea.

Answer 1

Forget the last OS error.
Your problem is that your PostScript program has an error. PostScript is a stack based language, and its telling you that you executed the 'pop' operator to remove the top element from the stack, and the stack was empty.
Without seeing the PostScript program I can't say more than that. Possibly its been corrupted in some way.