Fix for "mac internal compiler error 139" - disable Instant Hijack!

For the love of Pete, this took me forever to find. I have a 64-bit Mac Book Pro, and at some point I found that I could no longer use IntelliJ Idea, as it always returned the following, horrid and cryptic error message:

"Compiler internal error. Process terminated with exit code 139."

How rude! Even after re-installing my OS X from scratch and re-adding my applications, the error came back. That was because I installed Rogue Amoeba's Instant HiJack tool for my podcasting. For some reason, it messes with the compiler and forces it to an incompatible version.

The fix is located on the JetBrains site as http://www.jetbrains.net/devnet/docs/DOC-1114. You have to unload a service named hermesctl (which I assume disables instant hijack, another problem I'll have to work out).

sudo /usr/local/hermes/bin/hermesctl unload

So much for letting developers be podcasters!

Hope this helps someone else who has been frustrated at this problem.

Ken