My usual workflow since years is: to scan a document as PDF (with another tool, provided by Canon for the Canon MFP device), then to add it to DT’s inbox, select it manually and invoke manually (via button click) the OCR action. That’s it. This worked for years and just last month (December 2025) I was still using it. Today (in 2026, if that matters) I noticed it doesn’t work anymore and comes up with this modal dialog window:
Brief translation of the main message “OCR could not get initialized”.
I started DT as always, and can exclude the mentioned case as depicted in the hint “dont start it from a disk image”. I have also restarted the application, same result. I did also reboot the whole Mac, and started up DT right after fresh system boot, but still getting the same error message. when trying to invoke OCR.
There was no system / application / any sort of software update change since a while.
The used system and DT version are old, but it was running all the time. What could be the issue?
MacOS High Sierra, 10.13.6
DEVONthink Pro Office 2.11.3 (licensed of course)
Thanks for any hint to understand the underlying cause and how it can be solved!
Yes, I know these are out dated versions, and I would understand if DT2 is not supported in newer MacOS of course. But that combination, where DT2 works with High Sierra just as fine, was just working. Why would it stop working out of a sudden?
It seems to be a 32 bit kernel-related file that’s causing the problem. If that suddenly stops working, it is very probable that something has indeed changed. Automatic updates enabled, perhaps?
Thanks for your response. No automatic updates enabled. Also since High Sierra is “vintage” since a while, I don’t expect any updates at all since years so to say
Just to be clear, I’m of course not looking forward to DT company to “fix” this, as I’m very aware of it being EOL. I just want to understand how it can stop working like that. I hope not that a DT-related “server-side” component was switched off, which could have maybe that of an impact? Why I’m thinking that some DT-backend related services are offline: the initial splash window is also just blank and not loading anything. But: i never really paid attention to this and therefore can’t remember if there was content to be seen last year still or if it was blank since a while.
So my underlying question is: is the integrated Abbyy Finereader component in any way “time limited”? Or should it work “lifetime” long (under the assumption OS + software stay stable) and also without any dependencies to outside services (so fully local / offline)?
A software update check isn’t a dependency and I would say getting a decade of use out of an application would practically be considered “a lifetime” of use.
That being said, do this…
In the Finder, do a Spotlight search for Keychain Access and open it. If you are prompted to choose opening the Password application instead, choose to continue opening Keychain Access. You will need to enter your administrative password to allow changes.
In Keychain Access, select the Login section in the sidebar and Certificates in the scope bar.
Thanks BLUEFROG. While researching for Sectigo (I wasn’t aware they were Comodo before), I found now also this support article: Probleme mit dem Sicherheitszertifikat by Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann, which is basically repeating your advice.
I did it, and the “splash screen blank”-issue is now resolved, it shows again the DT logo / welcome message again The issue with the OCR component not getting intialized properly though is still there.
Hi DTUser, the same thing has happened on my Mac system. I’m on the last version of DT Pro Office 2 and on Mac OS 10.14.6. I have been using this software without a glitch since 2014 and now the OCR is not working. I even reinstalled both the software and the ABBYY OCR and no success,
Have you had any success in resolving the issue?
DT do you have a fix?
Nothing has changed on the computer other than the year changing to 2026. It was working fine in December of 2025.
It seems that a certificate has expired and must be replaced. There are a ton of posts in the forum on that topic, search for „certificate“ to find them.
The certificate “refresh” only helped to see the Welcome info screen again.
The OCR issue, my main topic of this thread, wasn’t solved by the certificate renewal.
Exactly. Your experience is identical to mine with the same basic underlying info: nothing else than the year change, and it started to come up with this error.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I have another Mac, which is “newer” (relatively seen, it’s still dated with it being the last Intel Mac Mini series) and can officially run up to Sequoia. But a quick internet search tells me that DT 2 isn’t supported anymore on that one, but perhaps Monterey. So a scenario to check out might be to try DT2 under Monterey on that other machine and see if that helps.
Apart from that, another (free) OCR-utility might be another option.
Of course there’s always the most obvious one to upgrade the license - if you have a Mac capable of running a newer version than Mojave, which is what you have installed right now, as I understood. But that comes with some conditions and prerequisites, which are not valid for me anymore, so I’m not upgrading my license.
Just read that the most current DT version requires at minimum MacOS Ventura. If your Apple hardware is not officially supporting it, then you may consider installing a newer MacOS with that “OCLP” approach. But that’s inofficial and be sure to understand that this is a workaround to get newer MacOS versions on Mac hardware not supporting that actually. So be aware of issues. If that’s your dedicated “scan + ocr”-only machine, it might be worth a try, but if that’s your productive machine for all sorts of things, where you can’t risk an outage, I wouldn’t use OCLP I guess.
