Biber does not print bibliography, though no error is shown

Question

I a bit acquainted with Latex, though I have just started going through the bibliography part. Up to a little time ago I simply used \thebibliography command.

Now I would like to switch to biber, but I have encountered an apparently unsolvable problem. I guess it is unsolvable only to me, as it may certainly be some dumb detail I missed somewhere. Let me write a sample of my code first.

    \documentclass{article}
%... more packages...
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[autostyle=true,english=british]{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}

\addbibresource{biblio_mimeo.bib}

\begin{document}
Here the whole document goes on... Then I would like to print the bibliography.

\printbibliography
\end{document}

Then I first ran the tex file with pdfLaTeX, than with Biber, and then again with pdfLaTeX.

The file compiles each time with no problem, no error display, nothing at all. Everything seems to go well, apart from the fact than the bibliography does not show up.

I tried to update every package of the utility. I tried to redefine biber as BibTeX engine. I have tried everything I could think of, but nothing seems working.

Besides, if I open the .bib file, and I compile it using biber i get the following error display:

INFO - This is Biber 2.12
INFO - Logfile is 'biblio_mimeo.blg'
ERROR - Cannot find control file 'biblio_mimeo.bcf'! - Did latex run successfully on your .tex file before you ran biber?
INFO - ERRORS: 1

Here I display also the .bib source in case there is something missing.

@article{ft:2001
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Does Money Illusion Matter?},
    journaltitle = {American Economic Review},
    date = {2001},
}

@article{ft:geb08
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Money Illusion and Coordination Failure},
    journaltitle = {Games and Economic Behavior},
    date = {2007},
}

@article{ft:ecma08
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Limited Rationality and Strategic Interaction: The Impact of the Strategic Environment on Nominal Inertia},
    journaltitle = {Econometrica},
    date = {2008},
}

@article{pw:14
    author = {Petersen, Luba and Winn, Abel},
    title = {Does Money Illusion Matter?:Comment},
    journaltitle = {American Economic Review},
    date = {2014},
}

@article{de groot:sub
    author = {DeGroot, H. Morris},
    title = {Reaching a Consensus},
    journaltitle = {Journal of the American Statistical Association},
    date = {1974},
}

@article{cooper:john
    author = {Cooper, Russell and John, Andrew},
    title = {Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models},
    journaltitle = {The Quarterly Journal of Economics},
    date = {1988},
}

I forgot to say that I work with TeXworks on a macbook. I tried to run these commands also via command line, but I get the same response.

I already thank you for any help I will receive.

By default biblatex (and also classical BibTeX) will only show entries that were explicitly cited with \cite{<key>} in the bibliography. If you want to add an entry you have not \cited, you can add it with \nocite{<key>}. If you want to add all entries from your .bib file without explicitly citing them, use \nocite{*}. See also https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/17128/35864, https://texfaq.org/FAQ-nocitestar. Your file has neither \cites nor \nocites, so it will produce no citations and no bibliography. Biber should actually warn about that, but there will be no error message. — moewe, Jun 05 '19 at 14:43
Note that your .bib entries are a bit on the light side for my taste, @articles should usually have a volume, (number) and pages field. Many @articles also have DOIs nowadays. Only author, title, year and journal is too little info for most style guides. — moewe, Jun 05 '19 at 14:44
Not the case here, but I found that omitting the .bib extension inside the call to \addbibresource{} results in a "Biber does not print bibliography" with an error that can easily be missed in the log file. — PatrickT, Apr 15 '21 at 00:26

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 05 '19 at 22:20

Well, based on your given code and bib entries I created the following mwe:

\RequirePackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@article{ft:2001
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Does Money Illusion Matter?},
    journaltitle = {American Economic Review},
    date = {2001},
}

@article{ft:geb08
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Money Illusion and Coordination Failure},
    journaltitle = {Games and Economic Behavior},
    date = {2007},
}

@article{ft:ecma08
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Limited Rationality and Strategic Interaction: The Impact of the Strategic Environment on Nominal Inertia},
    journaltitle = {Econometrica},
    date = {2008},
}

@article{pw:14
    author = {Petersen, Luba and Winn, Abel},
    title = {Does Money Illusion Matter?:Comment},
    journaltitle = {American Economic Review},
    date = {2014},
}

@article{de groot:sub
    author = {DeGroot, H. Morris},
    title = {Reaching a Consensus},
    journaltitle = {Journal of the American Statistical Association},
    date = {1974},
}

@article{cooper:john
    author = {Cooper, Russell and John, Andrew},
    title = {Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models},
    journaltitle = {The Quarterly Journal of Economics},
    date = {1988},
}
\end{filecontents*}


\documentclass{article}

%... more packages...
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}

\usepackage[autostyle=true,english=british]{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib} % biblio_mimeo.bib


\begin{document}
Here the whole document goes on ... \cite{ft:2001} % <==================
Then I would like to print the bibliography.
\nocite{*} % <==========================================================

\printbibliography
\end{document}

resulting after compiling with the chain pdflatex mwe.tex, biber mwe, pdflatex mwe.tex, pdflatex mwe.tex one get the following mwe.blg file:

[273] Utils.pm:209> ERROR - BibTeX subsystem: C:\Users\xxxxxxxx\AppData\Local\Temp\xxxxxxxx\mwe.bib_2792.utf8, line 2, syntax error: found "author", expected ","
[273] Biber.pm:114> INFO - ERRORS: 1

The message here is very clear: syntax error: found "author", expected ",".

The reason for this is that you missed to add an comma after the bib entry keys in your bib file.

Please see the following, now corrected mwe (corrected bib file see in environment filecontents*, please see that I also deleted the blank in key de groot: @article{degroot:sub,):

\RequirePackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@article{ft:2001,
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Does Money Illusion Matter?},
    journaltitle = {American Economic Review},
    date = {2001},
}

@article{ft:geb08,
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Money Illusion and Coordination Failure},
    journaltitle = {Games and Economic Behavior},
    date = {2007},
}

@article{ft:ecma08,
    author = {Fehr, Ernst and Tyran, Jean-Robert},
    title = {Limited Rationality and Strategic Interaction: The Impact of the Strategic Environment on Nominal Inertia},
    journaltitle = {Econometrica},
    date = {2008},
}

@article{pw:14,
    author = {Petersen, Luba and Winn, Abel},
    title = {Does Money Illusion Matter?:Comment},
    journaltitle = {American Economic Review},
    date = {2014},
}

@article{degroot:sub,
    author = {DeGroot, H. Morris},
    title = {Reaching a Consensus},
    journaltitle = {Journal of the American Statistical Association},
    date = {1974},
}

@article{cooper:john,
    author = {Cooper, Russell and John, Andrew},
    title = {Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models},
    journaltitle = {The Quarterly Journal of Economics},
    date = {1988},
}
\end{filecontents*}


\documentclass{article}

%... more packages...
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}

\usepackage[autostyle=true,english=british]{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib} % biblio_mimeo.bib


\begin{document}
Here the whole document goes on ... \cite{ft:2001} % <==================
Then I would like to print the bibliography.
\nocite{*} % <==========================================================

\printbibliography
\end{document}

resulting now without bibliography warnings or errors in the following bibliography:

Please read an introduction to creating bibliographies with biblatex and biber, because there are missing fields in your given bib file you should add to get a correct bibliography ...

Biber does not print bibliography, though no error is shown

1 Answers1