We should read the documentation of natbib, first.I obtained the same error after updating my latex system (but not before). I suspect that the former version of natbib was not able to detect the error, but the new one, does in fact.
The issue is in the way you set natbib and how you write your references. For example, "authoryear" would not work with a reference like this
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\bibitem{myref1} Author1 and Author2, Phys. Rev. Lett... (1983).
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\usepackage[square, numbers]{natbib}