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I've come to work today to find that over the weekend Biblatex has thrown a wobbly and no longer works. Every time I try to run it, it goes immediately to 'process exited with error(s)', and won't display what errors these might be, preventing any troubleshooting of the problem.

I can run PDFLaTeX ok on the file, and it was all working fine on Saturday.

I can't even get this M(N-)WE to compile when including Biblatex :(

\documentclass[oneside,12pt]{article}

\usepackage[sorting=nyt,
            style=authoryear,           
            %hyperref=true,
            backref=true,
            maxbibnames=99,
            maxcitenames=1,
            uniquelist=false,
            uniquename = false,
            dashed=false,
            backend=biber]
            {biblatex}

\addbibresource{references.bib}


\begin{document}


\cite{Karlstrom2006}
\cite{Cerveny1971}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

My actual file is a great deal more complex of course, and using a custom class, but as I say, this all compiles ok in PDFLaTeX, it is Biblatex where it is falling straight over the cliff.

I've reinstalled both biblatex and biber packages, with no effect.

Has anyone else ever come across such a problem? I think this is different to other biblatex compilation problems as there is no error log output to locate the issue.

Many thanks

Mike
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  • I should also have said, I'm compiling using Texmaker, currently v4.0.4 but I'm updating now to see if that does anything (not very optimistic). – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 11:53
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    biblatex is a package, it doesn't give messages like "process exited with error". You probably have problems with biber. Try to run biber on the command line to get better error messages. Or check if the blg-file says something. – Ulrike Fischer Feb 10 '14 at 11:57
  • Thanks Ulrike, could you suggest the cmd line input? I've very limited experience running programs from there. – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 11:58
  • It looks as if no .blg file is being generated - could that indicate what the problem is? – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:03
  • Enter in the cmd line "biber filename". As you didn't mentioned your OS I can't tell you how to open for your system. – Ulrike Fischer Feb 10 '14 at 12:07
  • Thankyou. Regrettably, I'm on Windows 7. OK, I've attempted to run biber on the file and nothing happens, that is, the commmand line just spits out the same line I've just entered. When I try to run bibtex on the same file, I get a response saying

    This is BibTeX, Version 0.99d (MiKTeX 2.9) The top-level auxiliary file: troubleshoot.aux I found no \citation commands---while reading file troubleshoot.aux I found no \bibdata commands---while reading file troubleshoot.aux I found no \bibstyle commands---while reading file troubleshoot.aux <There were 3 error messages>

     – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:13
  • Which suggests that biber is just not running at all? – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:14
  • But it is (re)installed this morning and is sitting in my MiKTeX bin folder, as it was before all this trouble. – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:15
  • Have you deleted all temporary/auxilary files and tried to recompile? – Nicholas Hamilton Feb 10 '14 at 12:18
  • Thankyou, yes I tried cleaning up the folder first when using texmaker before doing PDFLaTeX-->Bibtex(Biber)-->PDFLaTeX, and it only got as far as the first step. Now I've just deleted the .log, .aux, .out, and .bbl files and tried running the same sequence using the command line, and have the same problem; biber does not seem to run and no .bbl file is generated. – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:23
  • One weird thing I noticed is that the log file from PDFLaTeX has altered slightly from earlier, pre-problem runs: previously it gave a warning saying 'babel' detected but 'csquotes' missing, which I understood to just be a running minor bug issue but not a major problem. However, now it is saying 'babel/polyglossia' detected but 'csquotes' missing. I'm not running a polyglossia package or specifying a polyglossia option for babel, but this post appears to imply a conflict with biblatex for that package: http://tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2012-September/032303.html – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:30
  • But there's nothing in my code that introduces any polyglossia reference... – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:31
  • If biber is not running, check that the bin-folder still is in Windows search path. Also, check that biber.exe is not corrupted, by running biber --help or whatever the command line interface for biber is. – Sveinung Feb 10 '14 at 12:37
  • Thanks Sveinung. I checked the path is present via the Windows Control Panel advanced system settings/Environment variables dialog, and it is listed in within the user variables. I then checked the biber documentation, and I think biber --help is the correct command. But when I enter this into cmd, nothing happens, that is it just repeats the command entry request line... This looks bad – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:45
  • Ah. Hold the phone. This might be a stupid windows issue. When I run the cmd.exe as an admin I get a proper response from biber --help. But I am logged in as admin so it shouldn't affect normal operation of biber via texmaker. – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:50
  • Now I'm getting somewhere. Running the processes again (after deleting .aux, .out and .log files) gives the following message for Biber: INFO - This is Biber 1.8 INFO - Logfile is 'troubleshoot.blg' data source C:\Users\Mike\AppData\Local\Temp\par-4d696b65\cache-6bef6bfac2f8155f13b160f6720d4dbe6a10b684\inc\lib/Biber/LaTeX/recode_data.xml not found in . – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:57
  • Looking at the .blg file just repeats the above INFO messages. This suggests something crucial has gone missing from my Windows settings files? – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 12:57
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    Delete the folder starting with \par mentioned in your error message. – Ulrike Fischer Feb 10 '14 at 12:57
  • As said by Ulrike, deleting the folder is the solution, but still, why do we have to go through this on Windows? – pluton Feb 10 '14 at 12:59
  • Ah. That seems to have done it! Biber ran on the cmd line and subsequently pdflatex compiled properly. Now if I 'run as admin' using texmaker, the sequence works ok! Thanks a lot. Although a frustrating problem, this has been useful in that I've learned about running LaTeX from commands for troubleshooting purposes. Thanks for your help. Any outline suggestions why Windows might have suddenly decided that I have to specify running the program as admin to get biber working when I'm already logged in as admin? – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 13:05
  • Ulrike, thankyou for your help. If you copy my comment indicating the problem folder, and add your suggestion as answer, I'll mark as answered. – Mike Feb 10 '14 at 13:18
  • I have no idea how you messed up your installation (and how you actually did (re)install biber). But the admin account can't do everything. It can't e.g. simply mess around in other user account. – Ulrike Fischer Feb 10 '14 at 13:28

2 Answers2

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The problem appeared to be twofold: one, that the Windows 7 OS was forbidding access rights to the temp folder located in C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp, despite user having admin privilege.

Second, that a file called recode_data.xml that should have been located within a subfolder (with prefix 'par-') of the Temp folder was, according to Biblatex/Biber 'missing'.

The solutions were:

  1. Run the LaTeX editor (in this case Texmaker) using elevated admin rights, or from elevated command prompt (which is what I actually ended up doing).
  2. Delete the identified folder with the prefix 'par-' within the AppData\Local\Temp folder - this is then recreated by LaTeX, presumably with the missing file.

Thanks to Ulrike Fischer and other users for assistance!

Mike
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I had this same error when I initially installed the softwares. The error ended in 'process exited with errors'. The solution was to open texmaker and go to options--> settings file --> reset settings. This restarts Texmaker and after that you should be fine.

Prowton
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  • I have the same issue, however, I am using subfile package, when running biber with subfiles, it work, but for main file, it gives the same issue, deleting the par- folder did not resolve anything. – Silva Apr 23 '20 at 14:26