amsmath bibliography conflict

Question

Edit: I found a solution. I used the tocbibind package and replaced the line in the template with

\settocbibname{Bibliography}

I'm working on my thesis and my university has a LaTeX template package which renames the bibliography chapter from References to Bibliography and adds it to the table of contents like so

\renewcommand{\bibname}{Bibliography \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Bibliography}}

But this causes a conflict between bibtex and amsmath and I get an error if I have both of the following lines in my file

 \usepackage{amsmath}
 \bibliography{bib}

where bib is the name of my bibliography file.

If I comment either one of those out it works fine but I get an error if I leave both of them in.

These are the errors I get

! Use of \reserved@a doesn't match its definition.\protected@write ...le@protect \edef \reserved@a {\write #1{#3}}\reserved@a ... \begin{thebibliography}{1}
! Use of \reserved@a doesn't match its definition.\protected@write ... #1{#3}}\reserved@a \endgroup\if@nobreak \ifvmode \nobr... \begin{thebibliography}{1}
! Extra }, or forgotten \endgroup.\markboth ...d@protected@xdef \@themark {{#1}{#2}}\@temptokena \expandafter ... \begin{thebibliography}{1}

I would very much appreciate suggestions for a workaround or an alternative to the renaming line.

Thanks.

Edit: It seems that the error is more complicated than I thought as I'm not able to reproduce it without using my university's template.

Here is the complete .sty file: http://pastie.org/8505568

And here is the minimum code to get the error:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{packages/RUMSC}

\begin{document}
\SSE{}
\MScwhen{Date in English}
\MScdags{Date in Icelandic}
\MSctitle{Thesis title in English}
\MScheiti{Thesis title in Icelandic}
\MScauthor{Author}

\makeMSc
\MSctableofcontents
\startMSc

text\cite{holman_heat_2010}.

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{bibliography/bib}
\end{document}

The cited reference doesn't matter but the one I'm using is

@book{holman_heat_2010,
    address = {Boston, [Mass.]},
    title = {Heat transfer},
    isbn = {9780073529363  0073529362  9780071267694  0071267697},
abstract = {One of the most popular heat transfer texts of its time, Holman's book is noted for its clarity, accessible approach, and inclusion of many examples and problem sets. This new edition features design-oriented problems, and improved pedagogy.},
language = {English},
publisher = {{McGraw} Hill Higher Education},
author = {Holman, J. P},
year = {2010}
}

Hi, Welcome to TeX.SX! Please add a minimal working example (MWE) that illustrates your problem. At the moment, there is not enough information to diagnose the problem. And it appears that you are not using biblatex. You need to reduce your problem to a minimal compilable document that shows the problem but contains nothing other than the packages and commands needed to reproduce the error. — Alan Munn, Nov 24 '13 at 17:54
Sorry, I thought the standard bibliography environment was biblatex :)
I'll add code that can be run to the post. — Kári Rafn Karlsson, Nov 24 '13 at 18:01
It seems that the error is more complicated than I thought as I'm not able to reproduce it without using my university's template... — Kári Rafn Karlsson, Nov 24 '13 at 18:11
does the template call for hyperref with back references? both that module and amsmath define and use \reserved@a. — barbara beeton, Nov 24 '13 at 18:21
There is no hyperref in the template. Here is the template http://pastie.org/8505568 — Kári Rafn Karlsson, Nov 24 '13 at 18:25
i removed the [amsmath] tag. amsmath has nothing to do with the problem, which is explained nicely in alan munn's answer. a change in the title to recognize this would be nice. — barbara beeton, Nov 25 '13 at 15:06

score 6 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

As you have discovered, the error is caused by the line:

\renewcommand{\bibname}{Bibliography \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Bibliography}}

This is a terrible place to put the \addcontentsline command, and that's the source of the problem. The simplest solution (without modifying the package itself) is simply to undo this command and put the two parts separately into your document:

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\renewcommand{\bibname}{Bibliography}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Bibliography}

Also, I should note that neither the \usepackage command nor the \bibliography commands really accept pathnames as arguments, so using \usepackage{packages/RUMSC} and \bibliography{bibliography/bib} is not correct, and not guaranteed to work. If you want things to be found properly, either put them in the same directory as your document, or put them into the appropriate directory in your local texmf directory. See the following question for more information.

Can I \usepackage with a full path?

amsmath bibliography conflict

1 Answers1