[OS X TeX] BibTeX-Problem on Mac: couldn't open style file/ couldn't open database file

David Watson dewatson at me.com
Wed Oct 29 21:58:52 EDT 2008


On Oct 29, 2008, at 1:17 PM, Matthias Geissbuehler wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm a rather long term user of Latex on Mac OS X but today I ran  
> into a problem that I couldn't figure out how to resolve this.
> In short the problem is that I can't get my BibTeX to work anymore.
>
> Here is what happens:
>
> 1) To limit possible reasons I went for the simplest example using  
> a .bib file. I found one here:
> http://shelah.logic.at/eindex.html (three files)
>
> 2) I ran Latex (2x) over the file and then Bibtex (1x) (from within  
> TeXShop). Here is the output that I get:
> ---
> This is BibTeX, Version 0.99c (Web2C 7.5.7)
> The top-level auxiliary file: lpaper.aux
> I couldn't open style file unsrt.bst
> ---line 7 of file lpaper.aux
> : \bibstyle{unsrt
> :                }
> I'm skipping whatever remains of this command

I ran `find /usr/local/texlive -name "unsrt.bst"` on the command line  
and found the following with an extremely fresh installation of Mac OS  
X 10.5.x updated to 10.5.5 with MacTeX 2008:

     /usr/local/texlive//2008/texmf-dist/bibtex/bst/base/unsrt.bst

Note that I have never tried to update my TeXLive 2008 installation  
using TeX Live Manager.

>
> I couldn't open database file listb.bib
> ---line 8 of file lpaper.aux
> : \bibdata{listb
> :               ,mybib}
> I'm skipping whatever remains of this command
> I found no database files---while reading file lpaper.aux
> I found no style file---while reading file lpaper.aux
> (There were 4 error messages)
> ---
>
> 3) To check if it has something to do with my configuration, I asked  
> my brother to compile the same three files for me on his Mac (same  
> distribution) and it did work without problems! (with exactly the  
> same commands)
>
> 4) My first attempt to resolve this was by just re-installing the  
> newest MacTex distribution: TeXLive-2008. -> I did so, and I still  
> get the same error message.
>
>
> I'm certain that my distribution did work before (with BibTex as  
> well). The only thing I can think of for the moment, is that I  
> installed LyX for Mac recently (in order to help out a friend how to  
> use it...).
>
>

Perhaps you should run `which kpsewhich` in your terminal.
Or even `echo $SHELL`.

Let us know your results.

> Any help with this would be really appreciated!
>
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
>
> Mat

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