macos - PDFtk Server on OS X 10.11

Question

I've been using PDFTK Server on OSX pre 10.11 for over a year without any issues running commands on the command line.

After installing OSX 10.11 beta, I can no longer run any PDFTK Server commands on the command line. It does not throw any error, all the commands I try to execute just hang indefinitely.

I installed from a pkg I downloaded from the PDFTK Server website as always:

https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/

I've also tried installing from source with Homebrew. The installation works, but I get the same results, the commands just hang in the terminal:

Homebrew tap

I've sent in the complaint to Apple via their Feedback Assistant application that gets installed when installing the beta two months ago without a response.

I've been told regarding the Apple Feedback Assistant:

You likely won't ever receive a response. Apple only replies through Feedback Assistant for major bugs of the operating system where they need additional information. It is not a way to obtain support, even less so for a third-party application.

I've also reached out to PDF Labs, the makers of the package, without response.

On MacPorts they're having an issue with the build on OS X 10.11, does this mean that there is a compatibility issue with PDFtk and 10.11 at the software level?

I've searched the web for a clue as to what might be causing the issue and how to fix it, but have found nothing tangible.

On OS X, I don't know how to go about figuring out if there is now a permission or path or even a Java issue after the upgrade.

Any help either trouble shooting the root cause or offering a fix is appreciated.

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UPDATE 1:

I heard back from Sid Steward at PDF Labs:

We have been wrestling with this almost as long as the beta has been out. We are still working on it. There appears to be an incompatibility with one of the (non-Apple) libraries that pdftk uses and OS X 10.11. Presently I am installing yet another update to Apple's developer tools with the hope that it will solve the problem. I will update you with our progress.

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UPDATE 2:

Sid Steward at PDF Labs again:

It looks like there are two threads running under pdftk, and that they are deadlocked. That means that each thread is waiting for the other to finish. I'm not an expert here, but that's my impression. Here is a screenshot from Mac's Activity Monitor to illustrate:

The above snapshot is from trying to run the pdftk binary currently on our site on OS X 10.11. The libgcj library noted above comes with pdftk, where the others are OS X libraries.

As I say, I just installed Xcode 7.0.1, which was released yesterday on the App store. I will now attempt to use these tools to build pdftk.

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UPDATE 3:

MacPorts is working the build issue with PDFtk, this is an update on that thread (Note: this is unrelated to PDFtk Labs):

This is due to the recompilation of libunwind in 10.11 using Apple Clang 7 producing new valid optimizations (according to Apple) that tickle an unknown bug in FSF boehm-gc.

?https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=66848

Don't expect any fixes from Apple as they can't touch the GPLv3 code to look at the FSF boehm-gc problem (unless they used the gcc43 package which should still be GPLv2). That this issue is triggered by the recompilation of libunwind is demonstrated by that fact that substituting the libunwind.dylib from 10.10 eliminates both the boehm-gc and gcj failures.

Note that is was filed as radr://21372179, "the FSF boehm-gc library built on 10.10 fails to pass its tests on 10.11" but closed as being an FSF boehm-gc bug.

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UPDATE 4:

MacPorts found a way to solve the build issue, this is an update on that thread

The attached Portfile.diff (when used with the proposed gcc5 update on #49227 which fixes gcj) solves the build issue with pdftk.

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UPDATE 5:

Sid Steward at PDF Labs has a successful build, his feedback:

A fix for MacPorts gcc5 allowed me to build a working pdftk that merges PDFs on El Capitan. The fix was added to the ticket you had posted to:

MacPorts

I will proceed to fully test this pdftk before packing it up into an installer. This process could take a couple days.

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Answer 1

Thank you for your patience. I have successfully tested this pdftk installer and binary on OS X 10.11, El Capitan:

https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/pdftk_server-2.02-mac_osx-10.11-setup.pkg

I will update our PDF Labs site soon to reflect this update.

If you already have pdftk installed from the old installer, this should install right on top of it without a problem -- it shouldn't be necessary to remove the old pdftk before installing this one.

Note that this installer/binary has not yet been tested on older versions of OS X.

Please let me know how this works for you.

I want to thank Aaron for opening this thread and for bringing helpful attention to the problem we were having with the build tools. I also want to thank the MacPorts team for their professional and timely work!