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I have a problem similar to TexShop will not compile without trashing aux files after every error, but weirder. I have a long document with lots of footnotes (actual footnote's, not just citations). Everything's fine as long as I don't make a mistake. But whenever I make a mistake that causes a compile error, then after I fix the mistake, any subsequent attempt to compile gives an error "Error: Extra \or" at a line containing one of my footnotes. Oddly enough, if I comment out all the lines containing footnotes, then recompile, it works fine. If I then uncomment my footnotes a few at a time and keep recompiling, it works. But if I uncomment out too many footnotes at once and try recompiling, I get the same Extra \or error again and have to start over. This is extremely frustrating and tedious. To emphasize, once I'm done uncommenting all the footnotes a few at a time, the TeX code is exactly the same as it was when it was failing to compile.

And weirdly enough, trashing the aux files doesn't work. Nor does trashing the aux files and then restarting my computer to clear out any junk floating around in RAM (uncommenting all the footnotes one by one takes so long that it would literally be easier to just restart my computer every time I make a TeX mistake). Somehow TexShop's internal state is different before vs. after uncommenting all the footnotes a few at a time, even though in both cases the TeX code is identical, there are no aux files, and the computer was just restarted. I have no idea how this is possible.

Unfortunately, I can't provide a working example, because this problem only comes up for sufficiently long TeX files, just as in the problem linked to above.

Obviously the best solution is to delete TexShop and hire a witch to put a curse on whoever designed it, but what's the second-best solution?

Here's my preamble:

\documentclass[preprint, nofootinbib]{revtex4-1}
\usepackage{perpage}
\MakePerPage{footnote}
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

I'm using TexShop version 3.81 on macOS Yosemite version 10.10.5.

tparker
  • 719
  • First this has nothing to do with TeXShop but your file and TeX distribution. Is this a distributed document (i.e., using \include or \input for sub-files)? If so you also need to remove the aux files associated with those subsidiary files too. Sorry, but you end up with corrupted auxiliary files when you run into an error. – Herb Schulz Jul 25 '17 at 00:57
  • @HerbSchulz Nope, I don't \include or \input any external files. Any other ideas where the corrupted state could be hiding, if not in the aux files? – tparker Jul 25 '17 at 01:16
  • when you run into the problem do you click on the Abort button in the Console window so that TeXShop does a clean end to processing? – Herb Schulz Jul 25 '17 at 11:52
  • @HerbSchulz Yep. Doesn't help. – tparker Jul 25 '17 at 18:34
  • One thing is clear, that error message is NOT coming from TeXShop but from you compile so there is no need to hire a witch. I'm not familiar with the revtex4-1 document class or the games the perpage package is playing but I'd guess you should look there. Also, how many footnotes do you have before you run into problems? – Herb Schulz Jul 25 '17 at 19:05

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