Author names disappearing in Reference after the warning “the literal stack isn't empty for entry yan2016nonlinear while executing ---”

Question

I'm currently writing a paper for an ACS journal, so I'm using achemso style formatting in TexStudio to write it.

I'm relatively new to LaTeX so I've been Googling around to solve problems I've come across, but there's this one problem I can't seem to find a solution for. All of the referencing and bibliography work were going on well until an error,

---the literal stack isn't empty for entry yan2016nonlinear
while executing---line 1700 of file achemso.bst
(There was 1 error message)

appeared. After this error, the reference of interest appeared within the bibliography without author names, while all of the other references were okay. The reference with the error is (6) in the image below.

I've tried using the .bib file within another document, but there the bibliography turned out to be just fine. Currently I have no clue where the error could be coming from.

I tried to produce a MWEB regarding the comments from moewe.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{yan2016nonlinear,  
title={Nonlinear and robust statistical process monitoring based on variant 
autoencoders},
author={Yan, Weiwu and Guo, Pengju and Li, Zukui and others},
journal={Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems},
volume={158},
pages={31--40},
year={2016},
publisher={Elsevier}
}
\end{filecontents}

\begin{document}
\cite{yan2016nonlinear}

\bibliography{\jobname}

\end{document}

The problem is that the bib file works fine in certain situations. For instance I tried adding the reference to one of the conference papers I had worked on last year, and the bibliography showed up just fine.

The source of the bibliography is, after searching the title of the paper on Google scholar, I clicked on the citation mark, the second icon right after the star, then clicked on BibTeX and pasted the contents to my bib file.

Thanks for all the guidance. I know the format of the question must still be incomplete but I'll try my best to revise it.

Answer 1

Update The bug (https://github.com/josephwright/achemso/issues/29) has been fixed in version 3.12 of achemso released 2018-09-15. If you have the same issue, consider an update.

The answer below is kept for informative purposes only. The fix that was actually applied is slightly different from the one suggested here.

This seems to be a tiny bug in achemso.bst. I have opened an issue at https://github.com/josephwright/achemso/issues/29

Specifically in FUNCTION { format.names.loop }. Instead of

FUNCTION { format.names.loop } {
  { remaining.names.int #0 > }
    {
      names.str current.name.int "{vv~}{ll,}{~f.}{,~jj}" format.name$
      duplicate$
      'current.name.str :=
      current.name.int #1 >
        {
          duplicate$
          "others," =
            {
              bbl.etal
              add.space
              remaining.names.int #1 - 'remaining.names.int :=
            }
            {
              swap$
              names.separate.comma.bool
                { add.comma }
                { add.semicolon }
              if$
              swap$
              *
            }
          if$
        }
        { }
      if$
      remaining.names.int #1 - 'remaining.names.int :=
      current.name.int #1 + 'current.name.int :=
    }
  while$
}

it should probably read

FUNCTION { format.names.loop } {
  { remaining.names.int #0 > }
    {
      names.str current.name.int "{vv~}{ll,}{~f.}{,~jj}" format.name$
      duplicate$
      'current.name.str :=
      current.name.int #1 >
        {
          duplicate$
          "others," =
            {
              pop$
              add.space
              bbl.etal
              *
              remaining.names.int #1 - 'remaining.names.int :=
            }
            {
              swap$
              names.separate.comma.bool
                { add.comma }
                { add.semicolon }
              if$
              swap$
              *
            }
          if$
        }
        { }
      if$
      remaining.names.int #1 - 'remaining.names.int :=
      current.name.int #1 + 'current.name.int :=
    }
  while$
}

I.e. the changes are

--- achemso.bst 2018-02-05 21:29:10.000000000 +0100
+++ achemso-etal.bst    2018-07-11 16:21:24.290381800 +0200
@@ -872,8 +872,10 @@
           duplicate$
           "others," =
             {
-              bbl.etal
+              pop$
               add.space
+              bbl.etal
+              *
               remaining.names.int #1 - 'remaining.names.int :=
             }
             {

In your particular case it has been pointed out though, that the author list could well be

author = {Yan, Weiwu and Guo, Pengju and Liang Gong and Li, Zukui},

circumventing the issue. (See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169743916302088 after a nudge by Mico I have changed "Liang gong" to "Liang Gong" assuming it was a typo, I could not obtain the original paper to confirm this, though.)