Exiftool fails to install with Mac OS X 10.15.0 (beta4)

[sloan.d]

Just a heads-up on a possible issue ...

I was not able to install ExitTool-11.61 using Mac OS X Catalina 10.15.0 (beta4). See attached error message. BTW, the same ExifTool version installs correctly with Mac OS X 10.14.6 (Mojave).

- David

[Phil Harvey]

Hi David,

Thanks.  I was aware that the ExifTool Mac DMG package installer didn't work on Catalina.  But I thought it should give a security warning about unregistered software or something like that.  This error looks different.

But either way, the bottom line could be the same:  Catalina users may have to switch to using the perl Perl installation, which I admit isn't very Mac friendly.  Hopefully this will work.

I don't plan on upgrading to Catalina myself for a very, very, very long time (because I have too many 32-bit apps that I still use and can't afford to replace), so it will be a while before I can test this, which makes it very difficult to try to find a work-around.

- Phil

[sloan.d]

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll give the Perl installation a try at some point. Also, would there be some way to copy the existing Mojave installation files directly to the Catalina system disk?

Regards,

David

[Phil Harvey]

You don't actually need to install ExifTool to run it.  Just unpack the full Perl distribution and move "exiftool" and its "lib" directory to anywhere in your path.  Copying these files from /usr/local/bin of a Mojave installation will have the same effect.

- Phil

[sloan.d]

Thanks Phil.

I successfully followed the Perl install instructions for Mac OS X using 10.15.0 (beta4). One prerequisite is that the user has to be added to the "sudoers file" in order for the copy command to execute. This, in turn, requires a cursory knowledge of vi.

- David