errorstexshop
I am currently running TeXShop Version 2.47 on OSX 10.9.2, and whenever I click TeXShop > Check for Updates, I receive the message "An error occurred in retrieving update information. Please try again later."
Do I need to delete and reinstall TeXShop, or is there a better way to update?
Here are some points (I do this as answer, since comments are too short):
fmtutil: /root/.texlive2007/texmf-var/web2c/pdftex/cont-en.fmt installed. shows that clearly.http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-tex/texlive2009/branches/squeeze/texlive-bin/debian/patches/fmtutil-fix-infinite-loop_upstream/var/lib/texmf/web2cI suggest the following steps:
- check if there is anything you really need under /root/.texlive2007/, especially under /root/.texlive2007/texmf-var, and if not, remove it completely.
- run sudo fmtutil-sys --all
The important part here is that you run fmtutil-sys instead of fmtutil. Watch the output closely, and as soon as it starts to repeat (if it does), break out and publish the output somewhere (pastbin, website, ...).
But my guess is that by running fmtutil-sys you can fix this problem.
Norbert -
In your case the problem was using the 'Use a "build" subdirectory for output files option' of your editor. When Biber is invoked it looks for the .bcf file (in fact, Biber "compiles" the .bcf). But if the .bcf file has been moved to another subdirectory Biber is unaware of, Biber cannot find the file.
For exactly this reason Biber has the --output-directory and --input-directory options, as explained in Finding LaTex output files. Most editors are, however, unaware of this nice feature and do not incorporate this into their 'Use a "build" subdirectory for output files option' feature, so you will have to do that yourself.
The consensus on this site seems to be: Only use such 'Use a "build" subdirectory for output files option' option if you know what you are (and what it is !) doing. If you have a nice folder structure set up for your document, you will be able to cope with the temporary files produced by LaTeX and friends just fine.
In my experience the most frequent issued faced when trying to get biblatex and Biber running are the following. You will note that only one of them can really be considered a bug, albeit one that was introduced by an upstream package.
Failure to run Biber. Especially beginners using editor/IDE environments often don't realise that one has to run an external programme on the files. One does not only need LaTeX to compile the file, but Biber as well. See the often viewed Question mark instead of citation number. For those wishing to have their editor support Biber there is then also Biblatex with Biber: Configuring my editor to avoid undefined citations.
Mismatching biblatex and Biber versions. Of course it is always recommended to keep all components of the system up to date with regular updates. This is even more crucial for biblatex and Biber, since a particular version of biblatex only works together with a specific version of Biber. Refer to the biblatex documentation for the Biber/Biblatex compatibility matrix (table 1 on page 6 in version 3.0 of the doc).
The warning one gets when this problem occurs is along the lines of
Warning: Found biblatex control file version 2.5, expected version 2.4
Indeed this is only a warning and in some cases the compilation still goes through if you press on, but more often than not this causes trouble and grief further down the road.
One has to keep in mind here that the biblatex control file (bcf) version does not necessarily agree with either biblatex's or Biber's version. Currently, biblatex is at version 3.0, Biber at 2.1 and the corresponding bcf version is 2.5.
Biber's infamous cache bug. Sometimes Biber chokes on its cache folder - is has not been properly unpacked or otherwise been corrupted. This is a known problem and makes itself known with strange Biber errors and warnings along the lines of
Use of uninitialized value $llabel in concatenation (.) or string at Biber.pm line 1741
and
data source C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\par-416e6a61\cache-46f2da95c5284272f49f4e60b997c7e3f24afb19\recode_data.xml not found in .
As explained in Biblatex/biber fails with a strange error about missing recode_data.xml file? this can be remedied by deleting Biber's cache folder. In the linked question, one of Biber's developers announced that the relevant Perl package has been updated and so the bug should be removed in future versions of Biber.
Non-standard, non-uniform or malformed .bib file. Often, this does not lead to errors or warnings, but to awkward output. Sometimes people just download reference information off the internet or let their reference manager export a .bib file without reviewing the resulting .bib file. These files can contain awkward constructs such as note = {\url{www.example.com} accessed 1. September 2014}, when the biblatex way would be url = {www.example.com}, urldate = {2014-09-01}. People sometimes use @misc for works where the @online entry type would be more appropriate. For a list of supported types, their fields and the meaning of those refer to ยง2 Database Guide of the biblatex documentation. A good example for a clean .bib file for biblatex is biblatex-examples.bib.
It might go without saying, but if you have identified a problem and have fixed it it is always a good idea to delete temporary files (.aux, .bcf, ...) to make sure the compilation can got through without any legacy problems in the temporary files.
Best Answer
You can't update 2.47 to 3.xx via the update mechanism since 3.xx requires OS X 10.7 and later.
Go to <http://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/texshop/obtaining.html> and download from there.
Good Luck,
Herb Schulz