[tex-live] dvips can't find font

[Karl Berry]

    Any ideas what I could check? 

The file which dvips is ultimately looking at is psfonts.map.
Try running kpsewhich psfonts.map and look at that file.
This is the file which is generated by updmap[-sys].

  psxr8r Syntax-Roman " TeXBase1Encoding ReEncodeFont " <8r.enc <psxr8a.pfa

Also run kpsewhich psxr8a.pfa and be sure that file can be found.

Good luck,
karl