Question

On one computer, an OS X launchd daemon is crashing when it fails to load the MailCore framework. However, the framework is in the expected location, and the daemon is running properly on my computer as well as several others’. Does anyone know what might be causing the “image not found” error? Or how to troubleshoot this issue?

The MailCore lib is installed at:

/Library/Application Support/ArgusLink/bin/MailCore.framework/Versions/A/MailCore

The binary trying to load it is installed at (and run via launchd):

/Library/Application Support/ArgusLink/bin/arguslinkd

The install name for MailCore is:

@loader_path/MailCore.framework/Versions/A/MailCore

MailCore is built for i386 architecture. The computer on which the daemon crashed is running 10.6.8, with which I have tested successfully.

Full crash report:

Process:         arguslinkd [349]
Path:            /Library/Application Support/ArgusLink/bin/arguslinkd
Identifier:      arguslinkd
Version:         ??? (???)
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [1]

Date/Time:       2011-11-22 08:58:30.117 -0500
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)
Report Version:  6

Exception Type:  EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread:  0

Dyld Error Message:
  Library not loaded: @loader_path/MailCore.framework/Versions/A/MailCore
  Referenced from: /Library/Application Support/ArgusLink/bin/arguslinkd
  Reason: image not found

Binary Images:
0x8fe00000 - 0x8fe4162b  dyld 132.1 (???) <A4F6ADCC-6448-37B4-ED6C-ABB2CD06F448>
   /usr/lib/dyld

Answer 1

Following the advice at Dave Dribin’s Blog, I switched to using @rpath instead of @loader_path, though I’m a little fuzzy as to why that might have fixed the problem.

Note that I had to use @rpath/ instead of @rpath for the Runpath Search Paths value (the library is in the same directory as the loader executable), or I would otherwise continue to get “library not found” errors.