[OS X TeX] sudden stop

Wed Apr 14 12:31:37 EDT 2021

Big thanks to Herb and Ross for their suggestions.
As it turns out, the problem had nothing to do with the code interrupting an enumerate environment with a comment,
but the suggestions from both of you led me to a search which ultimately found the problem.

My first move was to comment out the “interrupting” code and everything that follows (to the end of an inserted file, containing one chapter of the book).
Doing that restored the bibliography and index pages, so I knew the problem was in that code.
I then uncommented the material after the interruption (expecting the enumerate environment to continue to the two \items remaining after the interruption).
The problem returned.  At least at that point I suspected the “interruption” was not the problem.
I then re-commented that material and uncommented line by line.  The problem remained until I commented out the very last line.
It took me a while to notice a silly but catastrophic typo:  I use a reference macro which takes two inputs, the first of which specifies the “type” of reference
(Chapter, Section, theorem, lemma, exercise, etc.) and in referring to a section, I had written {\sec} instead of {sec}.  When I looked more closely at the console
I saw that my compilation had run out of space—clearly some kind of viscious loop.
Once I fixed that, everything went well, including when I restored th “interruption”.

Thanks to the two of you for holding my hand through the problem.

Z

Zbigniew Nitecki
Department of Mathematics
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155

telephones:
Office    (617)627-3843
Dept.    (617)627-3234
Dept. fax    (617)627-3966
http://www.tufts.edu/~znitecki/

On Apr 13, 2021, at 19:15, Ross Moore <ross.moore at mq.edu.au<mailto:ross.moore at mq.edu.au>> wrote:

Hi Zbigniew,

On 14 Apr 2021, at 6:06 am, Nitecki, Zbigniew H. <Zbigniew.Nitecki at tufts.edu<mailto:Zbigniew.Nitecki at tufts.edu>> wrote:

I’m totally flummoxed by the situation I am about to describe, and can’t even see how to provide a minimal example.But I do need help.

I am developing a notes/book project, currently at about 200+ pages, using the memoir document style.
Yesterday, I finished a certain section, and today went to continue by proofreading what I had added last.
after correcting a few typos, noticed that whereas the page count (in preview) had been 215, it was now 202.
So I went and checked the pdf, and discovered that during at least my last few typesetting sessions, the output wasstopping in the
middle of an enumerate environment.  In fact, neither the bibliography nor the index, together totaling maybe 8-10 pages, were appearing in the pdf.
But the stopping point was not where I had started inserting new material intent, but an item or two earlier.  Also, the (later) page numbers for subsequent “parts’, as well as
for the bibliography and index, still show up in the table of contents.

I tried to run bibtex and makeindex.  Bibtex showed some disturbing warnings, which I don’t understand:
This is BibTeX, Version 0.99d (TeX Live 2017)
The top-level auxiliary file: Coeur.aux
I found no \bibdata command---while reading file Coeur.aux
I found no \bibstyle command---while reading file Coeur.aux
(There were 2 error messages)
The makeindex run also has a disturbing error message (which I had not noticed earlier, since it said zero items rejected):
This is makeindex, version 2.15 [TeX Live 2017] (kpathsea + Thai support).
Scanning input file Coeur.idx...done (0 entries accepted, 0 rejected).
Nothing written in Coeur.ind.
Transcript written in Coeur.ilg.

The stopping point in the output is at a place where an enumerate environment inside an item ends.

But what does the  Console  window say, when the job stops?
Open up the  .log  file, which has even more messages.

It looks to me like your job has stopped with an error,
perhaps coming from one of your environments.

Since the job never gets to the  \end{document}
then the bibliography and index files are not written out.
So the next processing step, if you are running a script, finds no entries.

All items in the environment are produced;  the next item does not begin.

At first I thought I might have made a mistake using mdwlist, which I used a couple of times to interrupt an enumeration of exercises, using the following format:

\savecounter{enumi}
\end{enumerate}

\medskip
\noindent
{
    \textit{comment}.
}
\medskip

\begin{enumerate}
\backcounter{enumi}

But as far as I can tell, all the \end{enumerate} and \begin{enumerate} commands within this interruption are properly matched up—and an earlier interruption is compiling fine.

I don’t even know where to begin trying to find and fix the problem.  Can anyone make a suggestion?

Examine the  .log  .
It is your friend and wise oracle.
You should *always* have it open.

It normally will give you the answer, but as with all oracles
you may need to learn a bit to be able to understand its answer.

I’ll be happy to privately send any number of files (there will be plenty) if they are useful toward fixing this, which at the moment has me stopped cold in my tracks.

Zbigniew Nitecki
Department of Mathematics
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155

Hope this helps.

Ross

Dr Ross Moore
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
12 Wally’s Walk, Level 7, Room 734
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
T: +61 2 9850 8955  |  F: +61 2 9850 8114
M:+61 407 288 255  |  E: ross.moore at mq.edu.au<mailto:ross.moore at mq.edu.au>
http://www.maths.mq.edu.au<http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/>
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