I have a similar problem with Fedora 31. The error message is

baron@barber ~/jdm/19/190109a > dvipdf jdm190109a.dvi 
dvips: ! Couldn't find header file: ntxsups_t1.enc

The result is a blank pdf file.

The problem seems to be in newtxtext or newtxmath, probably the first.

If I replace

\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath} 

with

\usepackage{txfonts} 

it works, although txfonts does not handle some of the characters. (I just changed them to the old version.)

I have an old computer that that still has an older version of texlive on it. If it helps I could try
to see where ntxsups_t1.enc is on that, but it is a pain to connect to because it won't connect to the internet
and does not have a monitor. Let me know.

I don't think it is just about footnotes, although I do have them in this file.

I don't think the problem is with upstream versions of these packages or texlive, but with with how Fedora is packaging them. I've resolved the problem completely by downloading texlive directly from tug.org, doing a local install for my user only, and giving the user-level install directory greater priority in the PATH variable. With that, the minimal example (and my actual papers) compile fine with no errors and everything rendered correctly.

(In reply to jonathan baron from comment #1)
> I have a similar problem with Fedora 31. The error message is
> 
> baron@barber ~/jdm/19/190109a > dvipdf jdm190109a.dvi 
> dvips: ! Couldn't find header file: ntxsups_t1.enc

I now think that the problem is somewhere else, possibly ghostscript. Either that or something has changed as a result of updating other packages.

I no longer see the problem in most files that I have. newtxtext works fine, and I do not need txfonts.

When the problem occurs now, it seems to be in graphics made by someone else. (I edit and produce a journal, so I get lots of graphics from other people in EPS format.) The problem occurs in ps2pdf apply to the graphic alone.

But most graphics work. I've asked the author for a new version of the figure. I now think that I cannot help with this bug report.
 
> The result is a blank pdf file.
> 
> The problem seems to be in newtxtext or newtxmath, probably the first.
> 
> If I replace
> 
> \usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath} 
> 
> with
> 
> \usepackage{txfonts} 
> 
> it works, although txfonts does not handle some of the characters. (I just
> changed them to the old version.)
> 
> I have an old computer that that still has an older version of texlive on
> it. If it helps I could try
> to see where ntxsups_t1.enc is on that, but it is a pain to connect to
> because it won't connect to the internet
> and does not have a monitor. Let me know.
> 
> I don't think it is just about footnotes, although I do have them in this
> file.

I think I know what this issue is. There was a naming mismatch in the CTAN tarball for newtx, it is fixed in the newer version. I will push an update to Fedora 31 that should resolve this.

texlive-2019-19.fc31 has been pushed to the Fedora 31 testing repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for
instructions on how to install test updates.
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2020-726bbfad03

texlive-2019-19.fc31 has been pushed to the Fedora 31 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Problems still persist. I got exactly what was initially reported, no numbers in the footnotes. I also get a bunch of the following error messages when running dvipdf. (These are just examples. There are more.)

Warning: module writet1 of dvips (file ntxsups-Regular.pfb): glyph `nine' undefined

Warning: module writet1 of dvips (file ntxsups-Regular.pfb): glyph `eight' undefined

Warning: module writet1 of dvips (file ntxsups-Regular.pfb): glyph `seven' undefined

Warning: module writet1 of dvips (file ntxsups-Regular.pfb): glyph `six' undefined

The version of newtx I was using was texlive-newtx-9:svn 53549-19

I then downgraded to texlive-newtx-8:svn47889-27.fc31.noarch                                         1/2 

And now everything works as it should.

Okay. Can you please provide me a simple reproducer case?

Created attachment 1671556 [details]
tex file of article

My comment got lost.

I don't know what you mean by "simple". I commented out the figures. This is real. And it works for any one of the 12 articles in the March issue (except one, the shortest, which has no footnotes).

I believe your concern is real, I just need to be able to reproduce it locally so that I can debug the issue and attempt to identify a fix. Thank you for your tex file.

Please try this (after updating texlive-newtx)

sudo updmap-sys --syncwithtrees --force
sudo updmap-sys

If you are still getting errors with pdflatex, please let me know. After updating the fontmaps (and installing hevea), I was able to run pdflatex jdm181221.tex without error.

This works! Thanks. It is all fixed now.

I had tried updmap-sys before, but not with --syncwithtrees --force

I'm sorry about hevea. I should have deleted those lines too. (I'm in a rush to get the journal done. I produce it myself.)

No worries friend, I'm glad this got it working for you.