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I'm writing a LaTeX document using biber for references. If I include the following in the .bib file:

@article{boschmassspec,
  author={Fritz Bosch},
  title={Schottky mass- and lifetime-spectrometry of unstable, stored ions},
  journal={Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics},
  volume={36},
  number={3},
  pages={585},
  url={http://stacks.iop.org/0953-4075/36/i=3/a=316},
  year={2003},
}

then all of my references break: even the references that worked previously will all throw reference undefined warnings and fail to properly be presented (showing the cite key instead of the number), and I get the following:

main.tex:78: LaTeX Warning: Empty bibliography on input line 78.
main.tex: LaTeX Warning: There were undefined references.
main.tex: Package biblatex Warning: Please (re)run Biber on the file:(biblatex)                main(biblatex)                and rerun LaTeX afterwards.

I am compiling the document properly (pdflatex, biber, pdflatex, pdflatex) and everything works if this one reference is omitted from the .bib file. What's wrong with it?

EDIT:

Here is a minimal example that replicates the issue:

main.tex:

\documentclass[twoside,onecolumn,11pt,a4paper]{book}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{units}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{physics}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{parskip}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=numeric,sorting=none]{biblatex}

\addbibresource{bibliography.bib}
\begin{document}
\cite{akberetal}

\cite{boschmassspec}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

bibliography.bib:

% Encoding: UTF-8

@Article{akberetal,
  author  = {Akber, A. and Reed, M. W. and Walker, P. M. and Litvinov, Yu. A. and Lane, G. J. and Kibedi, T. and Blaum, K. and Bosch, F. and Brandau, C. and Carroll, J. J. and et al.},
  title   = {Increased isomeric lifetime of hydrogen-like Os192m},
  journal = {Physical Review C},
  year    = {2015},
  volume  = {91},
  number  = {3},
  month   = {Mar},
  doi     = {10.1103/physrevc.91.031301},
}

@article{boschmassspec,
  author={Fritz Bosch},
  title={Schottky mass- and lifetime-spectrometry of unstable, stored ions},
  journal={Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics},
  volume={36},
  number={3},
  pages={585},
  url={http://stacks.iop.org/0953-4075/36/i=3/a=316},
  year={2003},
}
@Comment{jabref-meta: databaseType:bibtex;}

If compiled as provided, no references work properly. If compiled without the second reference, the first one works.

user502382
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    Please provide a full MWEB that reproduces the problem. There is no problem with your entry. – David Purton Dec 14 '17 at 03:51
  • You do use \usepackage{hyperref} in your main file, right? – Henk Metselaar Dec 14 '17 at 04:10
  • I've added a minimal working example that reproduces the issue. – user502382 Dec 14 '17 at 05:01
  • You MWE works fine for me. biber gives a warning because you should use month = {3} not month = {Mar}. Are you sure there are no errors given at either the biber or latex stages? – David Purton Dec 14 '17 at 05:53
  • Your example works for me. I get to see citations and the bibliography. I also get the warning David mentioned, but even though you should address the issue raised there, it does not cause any harm in the MWE. Did you manage to reproduce the error in your MWE in a clean directory? Have a look at the .blg file (on a Windows machine it might be classified as 'Performance Monitor' file, but it is really just a plain text log file that you can open in your favourite editor). – moewe Dec 14 '17 at 09:20
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    The error persists in a clean directory. I do get this strange error in the .blg file though: [228] Utils.pm:185> ERROR - Data file 'bibliography.bib' cannot be read in encoding 'ascii': ascii "\xC2" does not map to Unicode at C:\Users\gohma\AppData\Local\Temp\par-676f686d61\cache-02947398048c143181ebb9c4e483433d2665ac35\inc\lib/File/Slurper.pm line 63. – user502382 Dec 14 '17 at 12:33
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    @user502382 -- wild guess based on your last comment. the .blg file complains about something not being ascii. did you copy-and-paste this reference? the only suspicious characters i see are the ones that look like hyphens. sometimes an en-dash slips in, and that has a different (non-ascii) unicode. try deleting just the hyphens and retyping them. might not work, but easy to try. – barbara beeton Dec 14 '17 at 15:00
  • The code you have shown us should not cause these errors. Are you compiling the exact same bit of code or a different file? If so, you need to make sure it only contains ASCII chars. See also BibLaTeX not working with Biber 2.8 - error reading .bib file in ascii format – moewe Dec 14 '17 at 20:21
  • I did copy-paste the reference. I tried retyping the hyphens with no luck. I'm still getting the errors - any clue what I can try? – user502382 Dec 15 '17 at 03:58
  • Do you get the error with the .bib file only containing what you posted above or is there more in the file? Did you follow my last link? – moewe Dec 15 '17 at 09:48
  • Running your MWE with pdflatex, biber, pdflatex and again pdflatex it works for me, too. Try deleting all your auxiliary files, and rerunning in that sequence. – CarLaTeX Dec 16 '17 at 10:28
  • See the third page of the document. With one reference only there are two pages. – CarLaTeX Dec 16 '17 at 11:33
  • Any news here? Could you solve your problem? – moewe Jan 05 '18 at 08:48
  • Never managed to fix it. – user502382 Jan 09 '18 at 03:07
  • Any news here? The problem with this question is that I (and at least David and CarLaTeX as well) can not reproduce the problem you are getting. So we have not a lot to go with. – moewe Mar 01 '18 at 11:04
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    I forgot about this post. I ended up getting it working; I think it was an issue with my own MiKTeX configuration. – user502382 Mar 03 '18 at 02:47
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it was about a problem that vanished after updating MikTeX. The problem could not be reproduced on other machines and has also been solved on the OP's. – moewe Mar 10 '18 at 15:41

0 Answers0