Acbosgd.2172
net.unix-wizards
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!cbosg!cbosgd!mark
Thu Mar 25 09:50:23 1982
Re: ms diagnostic
This diagnostic comes from nroff, not ms.  It is one of the more obscure
error messages that UNIX can come up with.

It has nothing to do with filesystems being full.  Rather, there is a temp
file nroff uses which is addressed inside nroff with a 16 bit quantity.
When all 16 bits are used up, you get this diagnostic.

I don't know of any easy fix.  It tends to happen to very complex documents.
For example, it's fond of happening in documents with hairy tables.
One thing you can do is take the table out and nroff it separately.
Leave some white space for the table and paste it in later.
Splitting the document in two sometimes helps too.

I understand the new, device independent troff still suffers from this
problem.  It's pretty well engraved into the logic of the program.

       Mark

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