[Tex/LaTex] Xelatex, Biblatex: biber.exe not working properly (IPC::Run) error

biblatexxetex

I'm using biber.exe and biblatex with the following preamble in my tex document

\documentclass[fontsize =10pt, BCOR=0mm, DIV=default]{scrartcl} 
 \usepackage{fontspec} 
\usepackage{xunicode} 
\usepackage{xltxtra} 
\usepackage{polyglossia} 
\usepackage{graphicx} % support the \includegraphics command and options 
\setmainlanguage{english} 
\usepackage{csquotes} 
\usepackage[bibstyle= nature, citestyle=numeric-comp, sorting=none, backend = biber]{biblatex}%this style compresses the numbering 

\usepackage{setspace} %setting interline spacing 
\onehalfspacing 
\KOMAoptions{DIV=last} 
\bibliography{c} %sets the .bib database \begin{document} \section{Results} 

\section{This is a section}
\subsection{This is a subsection} 
\emph{this is emphasized} This is a reference 
\cite{Beaumont2004} 
\end{document}

Now since a day I have alot of problems with biber.exe. The problems started to occur after an update of many packages using the automatic update method of my MikTex installation. No matter which bib file or tex file i try, biber.exe is no longer working properly. And the errors looks similar as when I was using an old version of biber.exe once (this is what I get when I execute biber.exe on the .bcf file manually)

G:\Hierarchische clustering manuscript>biber.exe TESTC.bcf 
Could not find or check module 'IPC::Run' [THIS MAY BE A PROBLEM!] at IPC/Cmd.pm line 125 Already tried to use 'IO::Select', which was unsuccessful [THIS MAY BE A PROBLEM !] at IPC/Cmd.pm line 154 INFO - Logfile is 'TESTC.blg' INFO - Found 'TESTC.bcf' INFO - Reading TESTC.bcf INFO - Found 1 citekeys in bib section 0 INFO - Processing bib section 0 INFO - Found 'c.bib' INFO - Processing bibtex format file 'c.bib' for section 0 INFO - Decoding LaTeX character macros into UTF-8 c.bib.utf8, line 4, warning: 36 characters of junk seen at toplevel 

        Unicode::Collate: Can't locate Unicode\Collate\allkeys.txt in @INC (@INC contain s: F:\temp\par-homantg\cache-fa06d357fc5a676eeabf7d32fcd743b55bd08598\inc\lib F: \temp\par-homantg\cache-fa06d357fc5a676eeabf7d32fcd743b55bd08598\inc CODE(0x1262 454) CODE(0x1262754)) 
at Biber.pm line 1412

And this is the output from the latex logfile (truncated)

LaTeX Warning: Citation 'Beaumont2004' on page 1 undefined on input line 104.

[1] ("G:\Hierarchische clustering manuscript\TESTD.aux")

LaTeX Warning: There were undefined references.


Package biblatex Warning: Please (re)run Biber on the file:
(biblatex)                TESTD
(biblatex)                and rerun LaTeX afterwards.

I hope one of the users or developers could get more into detail about this error. Is it related to my machine, is it related to my .bib file (encoded in the wrong way? again see my previous questions regarding biber.exe) or anything else. ?

I'm using the latest version of biber.exe (downloaded manually from sourceforge) and biblatex 1.0

Minimal minimal working example

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage{english}
\title{clustering analysis}
\author{Tim Homan}
\date{oktober 2010} % 
    \usepackage[backend = biber]{biblatex} 
    \bibliography{testlibrary} %sets the .bib database
    \begin{document}
\section{Results}
text
\subsection{This is a subsection}
This is a reference \cite{Beaumont2004}
\end{document}

Library download

The library which i use for my testing can downloaded here (rar to save encoding):

download here

Best Answer

(I'm a biber developer)

If you are using the binary, it should be impossible for biber to not find Unicode::Collate as it's included "in" biber. The "-f" flag uses perl's built in sorting which is locale aware but completely dependent on your OS locale setup (which is often sub-optimal for many OSes). See the biber PDF manual on sourceforge for more details.

Do you have an old pre-binary perl install of biber anywhere? That's what this looks like to me. I'd do a complete scan of your drive for biber installs.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex / Biber.exe not displaying unicode characters in reference

I tested a complete example with unicode characters using the XeLaTeX/biber combo, and it works fine. Your log shows that you're using an old biber version, and this may be the cause of your problem (changes to the Unicode sorting mechanism were added to biber lately). Try upgrading to biber v0.6.

EDIT: Here's the example that works for me:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Palatino Linotype}

\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{J01,
  author = {Jørgensen, J.},
  year = {2001},
  title = {Alpha áâäæèê},
}
\end{filecontents}

\bibliography{\jobname}

\begin{document}

\nocite{*}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] Problem getting biber/biblatex/XeLaTeX/TeXworks working together

You might need to change how Texworks calls Biber. I was able to get the Korean text to appear without any issue by letting Biber know that the input and output were unicode.

To modify the arugments Texworks sends to Biber open up the typesetting preferences: Edit->Preferences->Typesetting. In the Processing Tools box, select Biber then click on edit. In the window that pops up, you can add arguments. I have -U -u and $basename, all as separate entries. The "U/u" entries tell Biber that the input and the ouput are utf8.

If you routinely use non-utf8 .bib files then you can achieve the same functionality by calling biblatex in the following manner:

\usepackage[backend=biber,texencoding=utf8,bibencoding=utf8]{biblatex}

The default behavior without those arguments is that Biblatex is supposed to detect automatically the encoding of the .tex document and assume that the .bib file is the same. It might be the case, as it was for me, that biblatex needs a little reminder that it should be using utf8.

Using this set up, the I had no problems compiling the MWE you provided above. I did run into the issue of no bibliography or citations appearing when using style=apa in biblatex. I am not familiar with this style so I cannot troubleshoot what is happening here. But I was able to get Korean to appear when I set style=mla. I realize that this might not be your desired style or the style you are required to use, but it at least demonstrates that Texworks using Biblatex and Biber can process the Korean text you ask it to compile.