`Missing = inserted for \ifnum` Error During Compilation

biblatexcompilingerrors

I know this question has been asked many times before. There are many similar questions but I failed to solve mine. During compilation, I'm getting the following error message:

./thesis.tex:41: Missing = inserted for \ifnum.
<to be read again> 
                   D
l.41 
     
./thesis.tex:41:  ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!

I‘m getting this error when I compile my LaTeX project like so:


latexmk -halt-on-error \
        -file-line-error \
        -no-shell-escape \
        -pdf \
        -output-directory=output \
        $(NAME_FILE)

The compilation happens inside a Docker container of Fedora 36. I‘ve installed texlive-scheme-full and latexmk. The funny thing is that line 41 within thesis.tex is an empty line.

You can find my full log message here.

Best Answer

The clue is

(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/biblatex/biblatex.sty
Package: biblatex DATE vVERSION programmable bibliographies (PK/MW)

which should look more like

(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/biblatex/biblatex.sty
Package: biblatex 2022/02/02 v3.17 programmable bibliographies (PK/MW)

which an actual date instead of DATE and a version number instead of VERSION.

Your biblatex.sty is faulty. This is a known packaging issue with Fedora 36 that has been reported and should have been resolved a few weeks ago. See https://github.com/plk/biblatex/issues/1218 and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2065453. Update your system thoroughly and rebuild.

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