BibTeX, biblatex and biber ⇒ natbib | Puzzling Citation Problem

[IntellectualVirtue]

Hi, I'm brand new here. I'm a grad student assisting my professor with a publication. We are unable to get citations to show up in the PDFs on my computer. When we compile the the document on his computer, it finds all of the citations in the .bib file fine. When we take the exact same files and compile on my computer, question marks appear instead of citations. I searched all over on-line and found others who have had this question mark problem, but none of the answers for them (as best I understood them) have worked for me.

Now, when we created a little test file (class: article) with a citation right in the text, it found the citation in the .bib file and compiled fine on my computer. Somehow, when we try to compile my professor's work, question marks appear instead of citations. My professor's file is a type of master tex file that pulls in ten other tex files (individual chapters in a book) and compiles them all in one doc. (The chapters can't be compiled from their own files--the master must be used to compile them.) that may give some of you an idea what I'm dealing with.

The errors I get are things like:

Code: Select all

Package natbib Warning: Citation `Smiley2010' on page 12 undefined on input lin
e 105.
Package natbib Warning: Citation `Randall1960' on page 12 undefined on input li
ne 107.
Underfull \vbox (badness 1158) has occurred while \output is active [12]
Underfull \vbox (badness 4341) has occurred while \output is active [13]
("C:\Users\Benjamin\Desktop\LaTeX Files\texold\BishopPerszyk.bbl")) [14]
[15]
No file osprV.ind.
Package natbib Warning: There were undefined citations.

I think the relevant parts of the preamble/commands are as follows. (I will also attach the entire master file (minus personal information in it) in case that's helpful. But again, the file compiles fine for my professor, but not for me. I've tried it on two of my computers. We've tried everything we can think of, triple checked all our file names and commands, etc., but nothing has helped.)

relevant preamble:

Code: Select all

\usepackage{natbib}
\usepackage[sectionbib]{chapterbib}
\bibliographystyle{OUPnamed}
\setcitestyle{aysep={}}

and then at the bottom of each chapter file is this:

Code: Select all

\renewcommand\bibname{REFERENCES}
\bibliographystyle{OUPnamed}
\bibliography{biblioall}

I hope I've been relevant and understandable in my post. Forgive me if I've left out information you need. Thanks for the help!!

[cgnieder]

Hi and welcome to the LaTeX community!

If the files are exactly the same, as you say, reasons I can think of that the outcome is not the same are:

• the compilation process is not the same. I suppose, though, you did call BiBTeX on your computer, right?
• you have different TeX distributions, TeX Live and MiKTeX, say, although that shouldn't matter if both are up to date…

Did you compare your aux and log files? These should provide some hints what is going on differently.

Best Regards

[IntellectualVirtue]

Sorry,I don't know for sure what you mean "call BibTeX on your computer." I did set my TeX file compilation to pdfLaTeX+MakeIndex+BibTeX, which is what my professor always uses. I think that's what you mean. I also tried using just pdfLaTeX and just BibTeX at times and in various orders to see if that would help (some on-line forums seemed to say to try something like that I think).

We both use MiKTeX. My prof has version 2.8. I've tried 2.8 and 2.9 but that hasn't made a difference.

We haven't compared log files in detail. I'll try that. Any hints on what to be looking for?

Thanks,
Ben

[cgnieder]

If I compile the following example with pdflatex and bibtex:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{natbib}
\usepackage[sectionbib]{chapterbib}
\bibliographystyle{OUPnamed}

\begin{document}

\cite{companion}
\bibliography{biblatex-examples}

\end{document}

I get a big black question mark, too. My aux file contains these lines:

Code: Select all

\relax 
\bibstyle{OUPnamed}
\citation{companion}
\bibdata{biblatex-examples}

and my blg file (the log file created by bibtex) contains these (and more):

Code: Select all

This is BibTeX, Version 0.99d (TeX Live 2012)
Capacity: max_strings=35307, hash_size=35307, hash_prime=30011
The top-level auxiliary file: test.aux
I couldn't open style file OUPnamed.bst
---line 2 of file test.aux
 : \bibstyle{OUPnamed
 :                   }
I'm skipping whatever remains of this command
I found no style file---while reading file test.aux

There you see why I don't get any references: I don't have the bibtex style file (bst) needed to create the references. Maybe this gives you some hints.

Regards

[IntellectualVirtue]

Perfect. I did have the same error as you and, sure enough, my professor had the file OUPnamed.bst in the same folder from which he was working. When I copied that file into my folder, I was up and running--no more question marks.

Thanks very much, Clemens. The problem is solved, and you've helped me understand better how to locate problems and, I hope, fix them.

[cgnieder]

You're welcome