Citations in tabularx cause all bibliography entries to not have a number

Question

If I invoke \cite within a tabularx environment and biblatex is loaded with defernumbers=true and sorting=none, references do not get a number.

I get these warnings:

LaTeX Warning: There were undefined references.

Package biblatex Warning: Please (re)run Biber on the file:
(biblatex)                file
(biblatex)                and rerun LaTeX afterwards.

But nothing changes no matter how many times I rerun biber and pdflatex.

If I change the tabularx environment to plain tabular references do get a number.

I have already brought this to PLK's (biblatex maintainer) attention on the biblatex bug tracker and he has said that:

This is because sorting=none invokes a special check to see if citation order has changed so that re-run messages can be issued for biber. For some reason, tabularx is triggering this every time. You can see something strange going on by just runing latex once and they you get, in the .bcf:

<bcf:citekey order="1">gob</bcf:citekey>
<bcf:citekey order="3">michael</bcf:citekey>
<bcf:citekey order="4">tobias</bcf:citekey>

There is a missing "2" order. With plain tabular, it is there. So tabularx is doing something strange like processing the \cite twice. I think it's worth asking this as a TSE question as the tabularx people are around on there.

Issue:

MWE:

\documentclass[10pt]{article}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{bibliography.bib}
@Article{gob,
  title           = {I've Made a Huge Mistake: The Hermano Story},
  author          = {Bluth, Gob},
  journal         = {Journal of Magicians},
  year            = {2003},
  volume          = {1},
  number          = {1},
  pages           = {1--10},
}

@Article{michael,
  title           = {Her?},
  author          = {Bluth, Michael},
  journal         = {Sudden Valley},
  year            = {2003},
  volume          = {1},
  number          = {1},
  pages           = {1--10},
}

@Article{tobias,
  title           = {Never-nudism},
  author          = {F{\"u}nke, Tobias},
  journal         = {Blue Man Group},
  year            = {2003},
  volume          = {1},
  number          = {1},
  pages           = {1--10},
}
\end{filecontents}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[british]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[%
  backend=biber,
  defernumbers=true,
  style=numeric,
  sorting=none,
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{bibliography.bib}

\usepackage{tabularx}

\begin{document}

\section{A section}
Check this out~\cite{gob}.

\section{A section}
% With plain tabular, it works with sorting=none or no sorting option.
% \begin{tabular}{ll}
  % \textbf{The term \enquote{issue} is used to refer to:} & \textbf{Reference(s)} \\ \hline
  % An issue. & \cite{michael}
% \end{tabular}

% With tabularx, it does not work with sorting=none.
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{ll}
  \textbf{The term \enquote{issue} is used to refer to:} & \textbf{Reference(s)} \\ \hline
  An issue. & \cite{michael}
\end{tabularx}

\nocite{tobias}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

---

Extra information: With the latest stable biblatex release, numbers are omitted altogether and only the brackets are shown. With the dev 3.0 version, all bibliography entries are assigned the number 0. But this is irrelevant because the same .bcf issue is seen in both cases:

This numbering in the .bcf issue also occurs with the released 2.9 version of biblatex. Further runs throw an error with 2.9 due to issues already fixed in in 3.0 but this strange tabularx behaviour is there. — PLK

Answer 1

You can just do the cite on the final run (it means the cite text isn't used in the column widths calculation, but mostly it isn't too important. (a more careful definition could use the text without duplicating whatever information biblatex is using)

\documentclass[10pt]{article}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{bibliography.bib}
@Article{gob,
  title           = {I've Made a Huge Mistake: The Hermano Story},
  author          = {Bluth, Gob},
  journal         = {Journal of Magicians},
  year            = {2003},
  volume          = {1},
  number          = {1},
  pages           = {1--10},
}

@Article{michael,
  title           = {Her?},
  author          = {Bluth, Michael},
  journal         = {Sudden Valley},
  year            = {2003},
  volume          = {1},
  number          = {1},
  pages           = {1--10},
}

@Article{tobias,
  title           = {Never-nudism},
  author          = {F{\"u}nke, Tobias},
  journal         = {Blue Man Group},
  year            = {2003},
  volume          = {1},
  number          = {1},
  pages           = {1--10},
}
\end{filecontents}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[british]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[%
  backend=biber,
  defernumbers=true,
  style=numeric,
  sorting=none,
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{bibliography.bib}

\usepackage{tabularx}

\begin{document}

\section{A section}
Check this out~\cite{gob}.

\section{A section}
% With plain tabular, it works with sorting=none or no sorting option.
% \begin{tabular}{ll}
  % \textbf{The term \enquote{issue} is used to refer to:} & \textbf{Reference(s)} \\ \hline
  % An issue. & \cite{michael}
% \end{tabular}

% With tabularx, it does not work with sorting=none.
\let\zz\hfuzz
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{ll}
  \textbf{The term \enquote{issue} is used to refer to:} & \textbf{Reference(s)} \\ \hline
  An issue. & \ifx\zz\hfuzz\cite{michael}\fi
\end{tabularx}

\nocite{tobias}
\printbibliography
\end{document}