diff --git a/src/HTMLRenderer/font.cc b/src/HTMLRenderer/font.cc
index 03e215e..301bf30 100644
--- a/src/HTMLRenderer/font.cc
+++ b/src/HTMLRenderer/font.cc
@@ -595,6 +595,11 @@ void HTMLRenderer::embed_font(const string & filepath, GfxFont * font, FontInfo
         bool name_conflict_warned = false;
 
         auto ctu = font->getToUnicode();
+        // NOTE: Poppler has changed its effective ABI
+        // in now expects the USER to increment any ref counters
+        assert(ctu);
+        ((CharCodeToUnicode *)ctu)->incRefCnt();
+
         std::fill(cur_mapping.begin(), cur_mapping.end(), -1);
         std::fill(width_list.begin(), width_list.end(), -1);