I know my reply is too late, but... I have the same problem for about 2 - 3 years. It worked many years before and the sources of pnm2ppa didn't changed. I think it can be a problem with some updated dependencies (maybe ghostscript?) I haven't figured out the exact conditions under which this happens, nor how to workaround it.
Plugins page does not link to this enhanced version and the old linked version no longer works. (documentation is wrong)