[getting binaries with debugging symbols]

[Karl Berry]

(Replying separately.)

    (I'm sorry there are not symbols. I'm not what the path of least
    resistance to get them would be?)

Good question. I wrote up the basic idea here:

https://tug.org/texlive/doc/tlbuild.html#Build-one-package

However, I suspect that for xdvi, especially on Macs, various things
will intervene to make it more difficult. If you give it a try, I'll be
curious how it comes out.

For completeness, let me mention a completely different path: some
distros provide symbol-full binaries as separate packages, so it would
be possible to "just" install the minimal distro packages and have a
debuggable binary.

I don't have a recipe, but that's my understanding, anyway.  I also
don't know if Homebrew or whatever other third-party Mac collections
provide such. (I mention this because evidently your present bug has
been around a while, so the exact source presumably does not matter.)
--best, karl.