Error "Too many open files" in pdflatex

Question

When compiling a latex document with 15 or so packages and about five includes, pdflatex throws a "too many open files"-error. All includes are ended with \endinput. Any ideas what might cause the error?

The error seems to depend on how many packages are used (no surprise...); however, this is not the first time I use this many packages, while I've never encountered such an error before.

@axel_c: This is not about linux. As you may or may not know, LaTeX is also available on windows (which just happens to be what I'm using right now).

Answer 1

Try inserting

\let\mypdfximage\pdfximage
\def\pdfximage{\immediate\mypdfximage}

before \documentclass.

See also these threads from the pdftex mailing list:

• Error message: Too many open files.
• Too many files open

Answer 2

Type

ulimit -n

to get the maximum number of open files. To change it to e.g. 2048, type

ulimit -S -n 2048

Answer 3

What is this command giving you:

$ ulimit -n

You might want to increase it by editing /etc/security/limits.conf file.