[Tex/LaTex] Why is Biblatex not working and showing “Something’s wrong–perhaps a missing \item”

biblatexerrors

I have this LaTeX document thesis.tex:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[czech]{babel}



\usepackage[
   backend=biber, babel=other   
]{biblatex}

\bibliography{library}


\begin{document}

Citing here \cite{ahu61} 

\begin{thebibliography}{99}


\printbibliography

\end{thebibliography}


\end{document}

and this in library.bib:

@article{ahu61,
   author={Arrow, Kenneth J. and Leonid Hurwicz and Hirofumi Uzawa},
   title={Constraint qualifications in maximization problems},
   journal={Naval Research Logistics Quarterly},
   volume={8},
   year = 1961,
   pages = {175-191}
 }

When I run pdflatex thesis, biber thesis and then pdflatex thesis again, I get this error:

(./thesis.aux) (./thesis.bbl) [1{/var/lib/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.
map}] [2]

! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...

l.24

?

What does it mean? What can I do?

I am using ubuntu packages installed by apt-get.

Best Answer

The environment thebibliography should be used only for a “manually typed” bibliography. With \printbibliography you definitely don't need it.

So, remove \begin{thebibliography}{99} and \end{thebibliography}.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Citing (author, journalabbr., year) needed

First thing to do is to add a field for the journal abbreviation to the article entrytype, journalabbr in the MWE. Therefore you need to declare a datamodel (an extra file; in the MWE I've used filecontents to simulate that) and you have to tell biblatex/biber to use it in the package options.

Then you have to modify the cite command, so it fits your needs. \citep from the authoryear-style (your citestyle) uses the \cite command. There you just have to add a switch, which checks if the field journalabbr is empty or not, and prints it out or not.

Last but not least you have to add the abbreviation fields to the entries.

MWE:

\begin{filecontents}{min.bib}
@article{boisson2003unexpected,
  title={Unexpected protein families including cell defense components feature in the N-myristoylome of a higher eukaryote},
  author={Boisson, B. and Giglione, Carmela and Meinnel, Thierry},
  journal={Journal of Biological Chemistry},
  journalabbr={JBC},
  year={2003},
  publisher={ASBMB}
}
\end{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{authorjabbryear.dbx}
\ProvidesFile{authorjabbryear.dbx}
\DeclareDatamodelFields[type=field,datatype=literal]{journalabbr}
\DeclareDatamodelEntryfields[article]{journalabbr}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass[fontsize=11pt, paper=a4, ngerman, DIV=calc]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[scaled]{helvet}
\renewcommand*\familydefault{\sfdefault}
\usepackage{fixltx2e}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[german=quotes]{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=authoryear-comp,sortcites=true,sorting=nyt,isbn=false,natbib=true, citestyle=authoryear,bibstyle=authoryear,backend=biber,maxnames=1,maxcitenames=1,
,datamodel=authorjabbryear%added!
] {biblatex}

\DefineBibliographyStrings{ngerman}{ andothers = {{et\,al\adddot}} }

\renewbibmacro*{cite}{%from authoryear.cbx
  \iffieldundef{shorthand}
    {\ifthenelse{\ifnameundef{labelname}\OR\iffieldundef{labelyear}}
       {\usebibmacro{cite:label}%
        \setunit{\addspace}}
       {\printnames{labelname}%
        \setunit{\nameyeardelim}}%
     \iffieldundef{journalabbr}{}{%
        \printfield{journalabbr}%
        \setunit{\nameyeardelim}%
        }%
     \usebibmacro{cite:labelyear+extrayear}}
    {\usebibmacro{cite:shorthand}}}

\addbibresource{min.bib}

\begin{document}

\citep{boisson2003unexpected} 

How it should look like: 

(Boisson et al., JBC, 2003)

\printbibliography

\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] Something’s wrong–perhaps a missing \item. \end{frame} Error

There are two main solutions. The first one is given by @moewe in the comments.

The other is to load the caption package (\usepackage{caption}), which will get rid of the error. This is the best option if you want to add a break line in the caption (which was perhaps your original intention).

If you do not want to load another package and still want to add more space after the figure, I would suggest to use \vspace{} after the figure. This however works for one figure only. If you want to change the spacing for every figure, use the suggestion by @Fran, and set \belowcaptionskip. See more about it here.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Citing (author, journalabbr., year) needed

[Tex/LaTex] Something’s wrong–perhaps a missing \item. \end{frame} Error

Related Question