Capacity exceeded error

Question

I am using MacTex 2016 on a Mac (El Captain 10.11.2). My text editor is TexStudio 2.11.0 and all my packages have been updated (TeX live Utility 1.24).

Since I updated MacTex from version 2015 to version 2016, I constantly get the same error when compiling : in a file containing references, when I compile with XeLateX the first time, I get an error about exceeded capacity right where I have an \textcite or \autocite command (the following lines are just warnings) :

TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [parameter stack size=10000]. This book \autocite{adams} 'firstinits' option is deprecated, use 'giveninits' instead. inputenc package ignored with utf8 based engines. Patching footnotes failed. Conflicting options. Add \usepackage{fontspec} to the(frenchb.ldf) preamble of your document,

This file.tex would work just fine before I updated MacTex, I would compile with XeLateX, then bibtex, then XeLatex twice. But before trying to desinstall 2016 and come back to 2015 (if I am ever able to download it somewhere...), I would like to understand what I am doing wrong, and obviously I'm doing something VERY wrong.

\documentclass{book}
\title{Chapitre2}
\makeindex
\date{}
\usepackage{amsthm}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{tipa}
\usepackage{chngcntr}
\usepackage[backend=bibtex, citestyle=authoryear-comp, maxcitenames=2, firstinits=true]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{/Users/MyName/Documents/Latex/biblio.bib}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{tabulary}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{lscape}
\usepackage{colortbl}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{enumerate}
\usepackage{arydshln}
\usepackage{todonotes}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{titlesec}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{phonrule}
\usepackage{tikz-qtree-compat}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.markings, calc, shapes.misc, decorations.pathreplacing}
\usepackage{xr}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage{gb4e}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\begin{document}

bla bla

This book \autocite{adams} is awesome.

Another awesome book : \textcite{arnason}.

\printbibliography
\end{document}

I know there are a lot of packages, but since some of them are incompatible, maybe that could be the problem. And here are the two references I'm refering to from my bib file :

@Book{adams,
  title =     {Faroese: a language course for beginners},
  publisher = {Stiðin},
  year =      {2014},
  author =    {Adams, Jonathan and Petersen, Hjalmar P.},
  address =   {T\'{o}rshavn},
  type =      {Book}
}

@Book{arnason,
  title =     {The phonology of Icelandic and Faroese},
  publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  year =      {2011},
  author =    {\'{A}rnason, Kristj\'{a}n},
  address =   {Oxford; New York},
  type =      {Book}
}

If I forgot something important, please ask.

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

The problem is in \automath of gb4e, together with the fact that biblatex uses an internal key with an underscore _ in its name.

This makes TeX enter a loop that ends with the dreaded “TeX capacity exceeded” message.

If you want to use gb4e and biblatex together, you need to issue \noautomath.

Other problems in your preamble are

1. \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
2. \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
3. \usepackage{times}

These should be removed and

\usepackage{fontspec}

should be issued. If you want a Times like font, declare

\setmainfont{TeX Gyre Termes}

Here's an updated version of your preamble that fixes the issue.

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@Book{adams,
  title =     {Faroese: a language course for beginners},
  publisher = {Stiðin},
  year =      {2014},
  author =    {Adams, Jonathan and Petersen, Hjalmar P.},
  address =   {T\'{o}rshavn},
  type =      {Book}
}

@Book{arnason,
  title =     {The phonology of Icelandic and Faroese},
  publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  year =      {2011},
  author =    {\'{A}rnason, Kristj\'{a}n},
  address =   {Oxford; New York},
  type =      {Book}
}
\end{filecontents*}

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage[french]{babel}

\usepackage{tipa}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{amsthm}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{chngcntr}
\usepackage[
  backend=bibtex,
  citestyle=authoryear-comp,
  maxcitenames=2,
%  firstinits=true
]{biblatex}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{tabulary}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{lscape}
\usepackage{colortbl}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{enumerate}
\usepackage{arydshln}
\usepackage{todonotes}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{titlesec}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{phonrule}
\usepackage{tikz-qtree-compat}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.markings, calc, shapes.misc, decorations.pathreplacing}
\usepackage{xr}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage{gb4e}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\setmainfont{TeX Gyre Termes}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\noautomath

\begin{document}
\title{Chapitre2}
\date{}

bla bla

This book \autocite{adams} is awesome.

Another awesome book : \textcite{arnason}.

\printbibliography
\end{document}

The filecontents* environment is just to make the document self-contained. Use your own .bib database. You should consider using Biber instead of BibTeX.

If TeX Gyre Termes is not installed as a system font, declare it in the following way:

\setmainfont{texgyretermes}[
  Extension=.otf,
  UprightFont=*-regular,
  ItalicFont=*-italic,
  BoldFont=*-bold,
  BoldItalicFont=*-bolditalic,
]

Answer 2

The solution that egreg proposes requires you to turn off the \automath feature (which allows use of _ and ^ in text mode). Since this is really a quite useful feature for linguists, here's a solution (due to David Carlisle) which will solve the problem and also allow you to keep using \automath. It is likely that this will be included in the next release of gb4e but that hasn't happened at time of writing.

As cfr mentions in her comment to egreg, it's generally not a great idea to use TIPA if you are using XeLaTeX. Instead use a font with phonetic symbols and enter them directly into your source. See:

• How to use phonetic IPA characters in LaTeX
• Typesetting phonetic symbols: Unicode or tipa?

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@Book{adams,
  title =     {Faroese: a language course for beginners},
  publisher = {Stiðin},
  year =      {2014},
  author =    {Adams, Jonathan and Petersen, Hjalmar P.},
  address =   {T\'{o}rshavn},
  type =      {Book}
}

@Book{arnason,
  title =     {The phonology of Icelandic and Faroese},
  publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  year =      {2011},
  author =    {\'{A}rnason, Kristj\'{a}n},
  address =   {Oxford; New York},
  type =      {Book}
}
\end{filecontents*}

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage[french]{babel}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage[
  backend=bibtex,
  citestyle=authoryear-comp,
  maxcitenames=2,
%  firstinits=true
]{biblatex}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage{gb4e}

\let\gbtmp_
\protected\def_{\ifincsname\string_\else\expandafter\gbtmp\fi}

\usepackage{hyperref}

\setmainfont{TeX Gyre Termes}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
%\noautomath

\begin{document}
\title{Chapitre2}
\date{}

bla bla

This book \autocite{adams} is awesome.

Another awesome book : \textcite{arnason}.

And you can use subscripts_{a} in text mode!

\printbibliography
\end{document}