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I'm trying to use biblatex and when I compile my document I get an error like the following:

Windows

data source C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\par-5061756c\
cache-890efc00b3ca6b775c7d44a325c1349fb2a3a3bd\inc\lib/Biber/LaTeX/recode_data.xml not found in .

Mac

data source /var/folders/v2/rld0ls7d2935gkvqv5hfr1x00000gn/T/par-616c616e/
cache-cdd483146f82a9655ce063f848d5139480fbf872/inc/lib/Biber/LaTeX/recode_data.xml not found in .

Linux

data source /tmp/par-6963617269756d/cache-f37ab610b7d79b2720a8ee3732849c6821705520
/inc/lib/Biber/LaTeX/recode_data.xml not found in .
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  • tex.stackexchange.com/a/18868/1998
    – pmav99
    Oct 26, 2013 at 18:49
  • @pmav99 I'm making this a canonical question/answer that we can link to as a duplicate.
    – Alan Munn
    Oct 26, 2013 at 18:51
  • 1
    Ok, I just added the comment so that the questions appear linked.
    – pmav99
    Oct 26, 2013 at 18:53
  • @Joseph Wright: You mean to mark the older question as duplicate of this one? Yeah, why not? This is the correct answer to a whole series of biber related problems.
    – pmav99
    Oct 26, 2013 at 20:48

2 Answers 2

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238

The error you are getting is a well known issue with biber that exists in versions prior to v. 2.2. For a long term solution to the problem, you should update your TeX distribution and make sure you have the latest version of biber.

But it's easy solve the problem right away, without updating immediately.

Biber creates binaries in a cache folder, and sometimes that can get corrupted. In order to solve the problem, you need to manually delete the cache folders. The name of the cache folder will be something like the following:

  • par-<hex_encoded_username>/cache-*
  • par-<hex_encoded_username>\cache-*

for Linux/OS and Windows respectively. They are located in different places on different platforms:

  • /var/folders/*/*/*/ (OSX, local GUI login shell)
  • /var/tmp/ (OSX (remote ssh login shell), Unix)
  • /tmp/ (Linux)
  • C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp (Windows XP/Cyg- win)
  • C:\Windows\Temp (Windows)
  • C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp (Windows 7/8)

You need to delete the relevant cache folders and compile your document again. You can find the location of the cache folder by looking at the .blg file, or by using the command.

biber --cache

On Linux and Mac, this can be combined to delete the offending folder in one command:

rm -rf `biber --cache`

More information can be found on section 4.1 of the biber manual (Section 4.1 Binary Caches).

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  • 9
    I solve this problem in *NIX systems (linux and MacOX) on the command line with rm -Rf "biber --cache" (sorry, I do not know how to markdown backquotes, so I used " insted). Maybe you want to incorporate this into your answer.
    – Michael Kohlhase
    Feb 14, 2014 at 6:17
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    I am looking into this again and it seems that it is probably related to windows automatic cleanup of Temp data dirs. The problem is that it cleans up things that are not locked and then when you run the next time, the cache unpacking happens again automatically for missing items - however - special files like the recode XML are not unpacked auutomatically again, hence the error. The workaround is still to delete and re-create the cache but I'm looking into potential other workarounds.
    – PLK
    Dec 16, 2014 at 18:13
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    It's unbelievable that this is still a problem in biber 1.9 – one that I encountered twice in the last month without doing any modifications. Since every minor release seems to be taking about a year, I don't expect it to be fixed any soon… :-(
    – Harold Cavendish
    Dec 27, 2014 at 11:27
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    @PLK: this is not just a Windows issue. My OS X install has had this problem for years and I still encounter it once a week or so.
    – Kai von Fintel
    Jan 13, 2015 at 17:50
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    Actually, this is now actively being addressed by the relevant module (PAR::Packer) developers and there is a beta fix out at the moment and so I hope to be able to update biber with this fix soon.
    – PLK
    Jan 26, 2015 at 14:00
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Biber 2.2 DEV is now updated on SourceForge with an updated PAR::Packer module which is supposed to fix this. Now, biber should be able to unpack itself properly again after any OS tmp cache cleanup.

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  • 3
    Thanks Philip. This is really good news. When will the new version appear on CTAN (and therefore be included in the regular update process)? Perhaps I can then just update my answer when this is done. Until then, this answer is a bit premature, since I don't think it's a good idea for people to be downloading their own version of biber outside of the regular update mechanism.
    – Alan Munn
    Aug 1, 2015 at 17:31
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    I'd like a few people to try this version first and see if the problem recurs first.
    – PLK
    Aug 4, 2015 at 20:10
  • biber 2.2 has just been released and will make its way into TexLive soon.
    – PLK
    Oct 21, 2015 at 15:53
  • Great. Thanks Philip. I've been using the pre-release version and the error has certainly disappeared. I'll update the answer to reflect the new release.
    – Alan Munn
    Oct 21, 2015 at 15:56

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