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I can't explain myself why I get the following error message from Overleaf where I have my latex file:

Package biblatex Error: File '[file's name]' not created by biblatex.

(Please note) This is the corrected preamble that I fixed after turning things around:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}



\usepackage[
backend = biber, 
style = apa, 
defernumbers=false]{biblatex}
\DeclareLanguageMapping{english}{american-apa}

\addbibresource{quanti_lit.bib} %name of the .bib file with my references

\usepackage{lineno}
\usepackage [autostyle, english = american]{csquotes} % US EN quotation marks
\MakeOuterQuote{"}

\usepackage{hyperref}

\begin{document} 
\linenumbers


My first reference within parenthesis \parencite{Cohen}

My second reference with a year in parenthesis \textcite{Allwood2003}

 \printbibliography[keyword={ref},title={References 1}]
 \printbibliography[keyword={GJ},title={References 2}]
 \end{document}

Here are the two examples of references that I stored separately in the quanti_lit.bib file

@InProceedings{Allwood2003,
  Title                    = {A study of gestural feedback expressions},
  Author                   = {Allwood, Jens and Cerrato, Loredana},
  Booktitle                = {First Nordic Symposium on Multimodal Communication},
  Year                     = {2003},
  Address                  = {Copenhagen, Denmark},
  Pages                    = {7-22},
  keyword                  = {ref}
}
@article{Cohen1960,
author = {Cohen, Jacob},
journal = {Educational and Psychological Measurement},
pages = {2030},
title = {{A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales}},
volume = {46},
year = {1960},
keyword                = {GJ}
}

Looking forward to your comments!

Jo-Achna
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  • Delete the indicated file and compile again. On Overleaf that can be done by clicking on "compile from scratch" in the warnings/error menu. – moewe Aug 24 '18 at 14:56
  • If you mean commenting out \addbibresource{quanti_lit.bib}, then that's not working. I get more errors. – Jo-Achna Aug 24 '18 at 15:04
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    That is certainly not what I was suggesting, no. A temporary file (most likely a .bbl but possibly a .bcf file) is either corrupted or was indeed not written by biblatex/Biber. You need to remove this temporary file. Unfortunately you replaced the name in the quoted message with '[file's name]', so I can't tell you which one that is. On Overleaf you can normally get rid of all temporary files and recompile from a clean state by clicking "recompile from scratch", that button is available when you are shown an error message, it should be at the bottom of the "compile error" message. – moewe Aug 24 '18 at 15:11
  • So I did recompile it from scratch, as you recommended before and what's weird for me is a new error message that says I should delete temporary file [file's name].bbl. I don't get how shall I delete smth that I can't see. On the right where I stored my project there is no file with the .bbl extention. So what shall I do? – Jo-Achna Aug 24 '18 at 15:17
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    If the "recompile from scratch" option does not help, something really weird is going on. The code you have shown us so far is fine. It works properly on Overleaf: https://www.overleaf.com/read/wgvfqqfcfxhf If your code does not work something else is going on. You can contact Overleaf staff or if you like you can also share a link to your project with me so I can have a short look. – moewe Aug 24 '18 at 15:26
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    Ah sorry one thing: In the .bib file it should be keywords with an s and not keyword. So you need to write keywords = {ref}, and keywords = {GJ}, – moewe Aug 24 '18 at 15:28
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    The new questions are entirely different, but here goes: (1) Use \parencite instead of \citep and \textcite instead of \citet. (2) Either don't load \usepackage{ulem} (the better option in my opinion: underlining is not pretty and its implementation has tons of technical difficulties in TeX) or load it with the normalem option \usepackage[normalem]{ulem}. – moewe Aug 24 '18 at 17:32
  • Any news here? Could you tell us how exactly you solved your problem? At the moment I think the answer to the main question is just: Delete the .bbl file. – moewe Aug 27 '18 at 05:42
  • Thank you for answering my questions from the LateX file. As for the fixed preamble, I uploaded it above. It works fine without problems. The things that had to be changed were: order of packages, including \DeclareLanguageMapping{english}{american-apa} for APA style AND defining again English language in \usepackage [autostyle, english = american]{csquotes}. I hope, I haven't forgotten any detail here. P.S. .bbl file is a ghost file. I haven't seen it in my project in Overleaf, as I pointed before. – Jo-Achna Aug 27 '18 at 09:49
  • The .bbl file is a temporary file that is created automatically by Biber, it is none of the files that you add and that is listed in the project pane of Overleaf. But you can download the file if you select one of the extended "download as ZIP" options and the file will be deleted if you click "recompile from scratch". – moewe Aug 27 '18 at 09:57
  • The description makes me think your main problem was actually https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/36331/35864 Maybe we should close this as a duplicate. – moewe Aug 27 '18 at 10:05
  • It was for sure one of the problems but not the main one. Since it's already linked here, I don't see a reason of closing this as a duplicate. Ofc, the decision is yours. – Jo-Achna Aug 27 '18 at 13:02
  • The question is what an answer to your question should look like. It seems to me that there were quite a few issues at work here (over time). And I'm wondering what answer could help future visitors with a similar issue. – moewe Aug 27 '18 at 13:11

1 Answers1

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The problem does not occur when compiling from the command line using the desired BibTex engine as I could run your MWE without any error on my Terminal.

The message occurs when the .tex file or other configuration files specify BibTeX while TeXShop specifies another. For example, you get a similar error, when the settings in TeXShop specify biber rather than bibtex while your .tex file contains \usepackage[round]{natbib}, or conversely, when a .tex file might use a class file to manage styles (.cls) specifying biber like \RequirePackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}.

The .bbl files created by a normal BibTeX run and a Biber run are completely different and they are not compatible with each other. Surely, you've used a file where a normal bibliography was used and afterwards you've switched to biblatex. That's why biblatex is complaining that "the .bbl file has not been created".

The solution is to delete the .bbl file and run pdflatex and biber again. Don't use BibTex or LaTex while you should be using pdflatexand biber.

Here is the output of your MWE:

enter image description here

Sina Ahmadi
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    The OP is using Overleaf which should run Biber automatically (and in fact does that). The problem should be fixed by clicking "recompile from scratch" in that case. But the OP suggests this does not work: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/447543/biblatex-and-biber-error-message#comment1124318_447543. So something else seems to be going on – moewe Aug 24 '18 at 15:29
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    Also the term "BibTeX engine" might be confusing. I suggest to write "Biber" instead. – moewe Aug 24 '18 at 15:39
  • I'm sorry but my problem was really complex and your solution didn't help out. As pointed above, I already fixed the problem all by myself and corrected the code in my question. Anyhow, thanks for trying! – Jo-Achna Aug 27 '18 at 09:51
  • Overleaf no longer has "recompile from scratch" but this problem can be solved by deleting the cache: https://www.overleaf.com/learn/how-to/Clearing_the_cache – hwaxxer Feb 21 '19 at 15:51