This is pdfeTeX, Version 3.141592-1.21a-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.4) ! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=1000000]. l.47627 \PL{ 249.81 181.74 250.44 181.80 250.46 182.14 c}%
Do I really need to change this (how?) or is it probably something else that has gone wrong? That 'runaway text?' looks suggestive.
This means that you have 1 MB of data in one scrap -- each scrap is processed separetely by pdftex. New sections should not influence it. (It might be possible that ancient pdftex version (1.21a) you are using does not flush the data to the pdf file after the scrap is processed and keeps all the data in the memory. Try to find whether the file th_formdef.tex reaches 1 MB on the problematic line 47627. If this is the case try to update pdftex.) You may also increase the memory pdftex is using in the file texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf by redefining the variable main_memory.
What I really need to know is how to debug it. I ran therion -d so now I have a /tmp/thTMPDIR full of mysterious stuff. Attached is data.tex from there, which seems likely to be relevant. Is that enough to determine what broke?
th_formdef.tex
And whilst I'm here: I would also note that adding scraps in a 900-line file is almost unbearably slow on a 900Mhz machine. It feels like something in the code does a linear search so it gets slower and slower to add each line/item. ctrl-r produces about a 15-second wait.
I supppose I should just have put all the x-sects in another file.
It might be a good idea to draw one scrap with sections in one file, especially on the slow computer... Regards, Martin