It turned out that there was a record in the file pvxview.grp. The table only has 2 columns: a record ID and a value field. The second row in the table, record number 00000001, had a null value. That was causing the error. By deleting this record via DFDM, the process ran without error.
Thank you @NicoleRonchetti for finding the cause. I owe you once a again.