[Tex/LaTex] Biber exiting with error code 2 but no error messages

Question

I get the following output (terminal output and blg log file) from running biber build/essay. It fails with error code 2 but doesn't give any error message… how helpful!

[0] Config.pm:311> INFO - This is Biber 2.16
[0] Config.pm:314> INFO - Logfile is 'build/essay.blg'
[120] biber-darwin:340> INFO - === Mon Jan 18, 2021, 04:53:13
[148] Biber.pm:415> INFO - Reading 'build/essay.bcf'
[337] Biber.pm:949> INFO - Using all citekeys in bib section 0
[365] Biber.pm:4340> INFO - Processing section 0
[385] Biber.pm:4531> INFO - Looking for bibtex format file 'essay.bib' for section 0
[388] bibtex.pm:1689> INFO - LaTeX decoding ...
[403] bibtex.pm:1494> INFO - Found BibTeX data source 'essay.bib'

Things used to run fine, but randomly stopped working.

Here's my (sample) essay.bib file.

Update

It seems like the biber run passes when I remmove all numeric fields from the file (e.g., year, volume, number)… odd!

Answer 1

Run biber --cache to get the cache location and delete it. Then try again, biber will then unpack itself anew.