Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that.  Here’s the results of using asdf:

> sbcl
This is SBCL 1.5.0, an implementation of ANSI Common Lisp.
More information about SBCL is available at <http://www.sbcl.org/>.

SBCL is free software, provided as is, with absolutely no warranty.
It is mostly in the public domain; some portions are provided under
BSD-style licenses.  See the CREDITS and COPYING files in the
distribution for more information.
* (asdf:load-system :cffi)
; compiling file "/Users/Patrick/.sbcl/site/cffi_0.9.2/src/cffi-sbcl.lisp" (written 08 SEP 2006 04:56:43 PM):
; compiling (DEFPACKAGE #:CFFI-SYS ...)
; compiling (IN-PACKAGE #:CFFI-SYS)
; compiling (MAPC (LAMBDA # ...) ...)
; compiling (DEFUN CANONICALIZE-SYMBOL-NAME-CASE ...)
; compiling (DEFUN POINTERP ...)
; compiling (DEFUN POINTER-EQ ...)
; compiling (DEFUN NULL-POINTER ...)
; compiling (DEFUN NULL-POINTER-P ...)
; compiling (DEFUN INC-POINTER ...)
; compiling (DEFUN MAKE-POINTER ...)
; compiling (DEFUN POINTER-ADDRESS ...)
; compiling (DEFUN %FOREIGN-ALLOC ...)
; compiling (DEFUN FOREIGN-FREE ...)
; compiling (DEFMACRO WITH-FOREIGN-POINTER ...)
; compiling (DEFUN MAKE-SHAREABLE-BYTE-VECTOR ...)
; compiling (DEFMACRO WITH-POINTER-TO-VECTOR-DATA ...)
; compiling (DEFMACRO DEFINE-MEM-ACCESSORS ...)
; compiling (DEFINE-MEM-ACCESSORS (:CHAR SB-SYS:SIGNED-SAP-REF-8) ...)
; compiling (DEFUN CONVERT-FOREIGN-TYPE ...)
; compiling (DEFUN %FOREIGN-TYPE-SIZE ...)
; compiling (DEFUN %FOREIGN-TYPE-ALIGNMENT ...)
; compiling (DEFUN FOREIGN-FUNCALL-TYPE-AND-ARGS ...)
; compiling (DEFMACRO %%FOREIGN-FUNCALL ...)
; compiling (DEFMACRO %FOREIGN-FUNCALL ...)
; compiling (DEFMACRO %FOREIGN-FUNCALL-POINTER ...)
; compiling (DEFVAR *CALLBACKS* ...)
; compiling (DEFMACRO %DEFCALLBACK ...)
; compiling (DEFUN %CALLBACK ...)
; compiling (DEFUN %LOAD-FOREIGN-LIBRARY ...); 
; caught ERROR:
;   READ error during COMPILE-FILE:
;   
;     Lock on package SB-ALIEN violated when interning SHARED-OBJECT-FILE while in
;     package CFFI-SYS.
;   See also:
;     The SBCL Manual, Node "Package Locks"
;   
;     (in form starting at line: 306, column: 0, position: 10629)

; compilation aborted after 0:00:00.139

debugger invoked on a UIOP/LISP-BUILD:COMPILE-FILE-ERROR in thread
#<THREAD "main thread" RUNNING {10005205B3}>:
  COMPILE-FILE-ERROR while compiling #<CL-SOURCE-FILE "cffi" "src" "cffi-sbcl">

Type HELP for debugger help, or (SB-EXT:EXIT) to exit from SBCL.

restarts (invokable by number or by possibly-abbreviated name):
  0: [RETRY                        ] Retry
                                     compiling #<CL-SOURCE-FILE "cffi" "src" "cffi-sbcl">.
  1: [ACCEPT                       ] Continue, treating
                                     compiling #<CL-SOURCE-FILE "cffi" "src" "cffi-sbcl">
                                     as having been successful.
  2:                                 Retry ASDF operation.
  3: [CLEAR-CONFIGURATION-AND-RETRY] Retry ASDF operation after resetting the
                                     configuration.
  4:                                 Retry ASDF operation.
  5:                                 Retry ASDF operation after resetting the
                                     configuration.
  6: [ABORT                        ] Exit debugger, returning to top level.

(UIOP/LISP-BUILD:CHECK-LISP-COMPILE-RESULTS NIL T T "~/asdf-action::format-action/" ((#<ASDF/LISP-ACTION:COMPILE-OP > . #<ASDF/LISP-ACTION:CL-SOURCE-FILE "cffi" "src" "cffi-sbcl">)))
; File has been modified since compilation:
;   SYS:CONTRIB;ASDF;UIOP.LISP.NEWEST
; Using form offset instead of character position.

   source: (ERROR 'COMPILE-FILE-ERROR :CONTEXT-FORMAT CONTEXT-FORMAT
                  :CONTEXT-ARGUMENTS CONTEXT-ARGUMENTS)
0] 6
; 
; compilation unit aborted
;   caught 2 fatal ERROR conditions
;   caught 1 ERROR condition
* (quit)

On Mar 23, 2019, at 5:15 PM, Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.info> wrote:

One thing to try first off -- quickload by default suppresses errors (catches them) and keeps you from getting at them. So you should do the (asdf:load-system :cffi) again, but this time get a backtrace. That will give people more information so that they can help.
Cheers,
R

On 23 Mar 2019, at 15:56, Patrick May wrote:

I’m running Mojave 10.14.2 and SBCL 1.5.0. When I try to load CFFI, I get this error:

* (ql:quickload :cffi)
To load "cffi":
Load 1 ASDF system:
cffi
; Loading "cffi"
[package cffi-utils]..............................
[package cffi-features]...........................
[package cffi-sys]....;
; caught ERROR:
; READ error during COMPILE-FILE:
;
; Lock on package SB-ALIEN violated when interning SHARED-OBJECT-FILE while in
; package CFFI-SYS.
; See also:
; The SBCL Manual, Node "Package Locks"
;
; (in form starting at line: 306, column: 0, position: 10629)

Then I’m dumped into the debugger. The same thing occurs using (asdf:load-system :cffi). I’ve cleared ~/.cache/common-lisp, but no joy. Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks,

Patrick

Robert P. Goldman
Research Fellow
Smart Information Flow Technologies (d/b/a SIFT, LLC)

319 N. First Ave., Suite 400
Minneapolis, MN 55401

Voice: (612) 326-3934
Email: rpgoldman@SIFT.net