Odd chapter heading appearing in middle of chapter

Question

I get a very odd chapter heading in the middle of my abbreviation chapter in my thesis. I simply cannot figure out why and have tried with \clearpage and other tricks, but none worked.

My full main.tex file and abbreviation file can be seen here: Main.tex file

Abbrevations file

Minimal example. Main.tex file: \documentclass[10pt, a4paper, twoside, english]{report} \input{include/packagescommands} \input{include/settings}

\begin{document}
\setlength{\parskip}{0pt} %spacing between paragraphs
\setcounter{tocdepth}{1}
\tableofcontents
\input{include/abbreviations}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%% CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION %%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\newpage \setdefaulthdr \pagenumbering{arabic} \setcounter{page}{1}
\input{include/dummy}%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\end{document}

Abbrevation.tex file:

\chapter*{Abbreviations}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\textit{Abbreviations}}

\vspace{-\baselineskip}
\bgroup
\def\arraystretch{0.8}

\begin{center}{
\begin{tabular}{l c l}
A, C, G, T, U&&adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine, uracil\\
AFM&&atomic force microscopy\\
AGE&&agarose gel electrophoresis\\
...
\end{tabular}
\newpage
\begin{tabular}{l c l}
MASP(s)&&MBL-associated serine protease(s)\\
MBL&&mannan-binding lectin (also known as mannose-binding lectin)\\
...
\end{tabular}}
\end{center}

Dummy.tex file

\chapter[Dummy chapter]{\uppercase{Dummy chapter}}\label{ch:dummy}
 dummy text\cite{okholm_quantification_2014}
\section{dummy}
\subsection{dummy}

My packages and settings can be seen here Packages

Settings file

The relevant parts are extracted below, however, other parts could be relevant this is just my gut feeling.

Packagecommands.tex

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{fncychap}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{sectsty}

Settings.tex

%titlespaceing
\titlespacing*{\chapter}{0pt}{-50pt}{30pt} % this alters "before" spacing (the second length argument) to 0
\titlespacing*{\section}{0pt}{10pt}{0pt}
\titlespacing*{\subsection}{0pt}{10pt}{0pt}
\titlespacing*{\subsubsection}{0pt}{10pt}{0pt}

% Fancyheader (see packagescommands.tex for default/special)
\pagestyle{fancy}

 \newcommand*\HUGE{\Huge}
 \newcommand*\chapnamefont{\normalfont\LARGE\MakeUppercase}
 \newcommand*\chapnumfont{\normalfont}
 \newcommand*\chaptitlefont{\normalfont\HUGE\bfseries}

 \newlength\beforechapskip
 \newlength\midchapskip
 \setlength\midchapskip{\paperwidth}
 \addtolength\midchapskip{-\textwidth}
 \addtolength\midchapskip{-\oddsidemargin}
 \addtolength\midchapskip{-1in}
 \setlength\beforechapskip{18mm}

\titleformat{\chapter}[display]
{\normalfont\filleft}
{{\chapnamefont\chaptertitlename}%
 \makebox[0pt][l]{\hspace{.8em}%
   \resizebox{!}{\beforechapskip}{\chapnumfont\thechapter}%
   \hspace{.8em}%
   \rule{\midchapskip}{\beforechapskip}%
 }%
}%
{25pt}
{\chaptitlefont}
\titlespacing*{\chapter}
  {0pt}{40pt}{40pt}

% Title font
\titleformat*{\section}{\large\bfseries}
\titleformat*{\subsection}{\large\bfseries}
\titleformat*{\subsubsection}{\normalsize\bfseries}
\titleformat*{\paragraph}{\normalsize\bfseries}
\titleformat*{\subparagraph}{\normalsize\bfseries}

Any help with be highly appreciated. Thank you

Answer 1

Near the beginning of your document you execute the command \setspecialhdr, which is defined in include/settings.tex as follows:

    \newcommand{\setspecialhdr}{%
    \fancyhead[RE, LO]{\slshape \chapter}%
    \fancyhead[RO, LE]\thepage{}%
    \fancyfoot[C]{}%
}

The command \chapter in the second line is responsible that on every second page a new chapter is opened, as part of your fancy heading. What was your intention of putting \chapter there? By the way, it looks like the commands before this definition actually should go into the definition (at least when comparing it to the other header definitions in this file).

As a side note, your abbreviations file contains a \bgroup, but no closing \egroup.

Answer 2

I cannot reproduce your issue. Please make sure your MWE exposes the problem. (And the MWE does not require any editing and is actually minimal! Just try downloading your MWE yourself and compile in a clean directory before asking, please.)

I would suggest that you also scan any aux, toc, lot, … files and see if there is any \chapter command. Then you can look for a command/package that writes to this auxiliary file.

(Addendum: as the problem has been found by gernot, the first thing to search for would of course be any \chapter commands in your tex files.)

Also, have a look at the pdflatex output. It shows you which file generates the chapter:

(foo.tex (baz.tex)
chapter 1.
[2] [3] 
) (bar.tex [4] …)

Here, foo.tex generates chapter 1, and also writes pages 2 and 3. At the end of page 4, bar.tex was being typeset (but foo.tex might be responsible for the first part of page 4).

(I have not enough reputation to post this as a comment, so please bear with me.)