Biblatex / Biber.exe not displaying unicode characters in reference

Question

I'm using Xelatex with biblatex and the biber.exe backend:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{xltxtra}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage{english}
\defaultfontfeatures{Scale=MatchLowercase}
\setmainfont{Sabon LT}
\setsansfont{Syntax LT}
\setmonofont{Courier New} 
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[bibstyle=nature, citestyle=numeric-comp, sorting=none,backend=biber]{biblatex}%this style compresses the numbering 
\bibliography{cluster.bib}

\begin{document}
some text
some unicode text áâäæèê\\
some unicode text: Parenicovà          áâäæèê with an unicode reference \autocite{Parenicova2000a}\\
unicode reference two Jørgensen \autocite{Joergensen2009}\\
Reference without unicode \autocite{Wu2004}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Unicode characters are displayed correctly in the text body, however in the reference list the unicode characters are omitted (see attached image)

This is not a problem related to my .bib library, I encod my library in UTF-8 (UTF-16 tested too, no difference) when I use normal pdflatex and biblatex characters are displayed normally. I think the error is related to biber.exe in combination with my Windows Vista, the following error is displayed when I run biber.exe on the .bcf file manually:

F:\LaTeX\xetex_testing>biber.exe testB.bcf
Could not find or check module 'IPC::Run' [THIS MAY BE A PROBLEM!] at IPC/Cmd.pm
 line 125
Already tried to use 'IO::Select', which was unsuccessful [THIS MAY BE A PROBLEM
!] at IPC/Cmd.pm line 154
INFO - Logfile is 'testB.blg'
INFO - Found 'testB.bcf'
INFO - Reading testB.bcf
WARN - Warning: You are using biblatex version 1.0 :
biber is more likely to work with version 0.9e.
INFO - Found 3 citekeys in bib section 0
INFO - Processing bib section 0
INFO - Found 'cluster.bib'
INFO - Processing file 'cluster.bib' for section 0
INFO - Decoding LaTeX character macros into UTF-8
Unicode::Collate: Can't locate Unicode\Collate\allkeys.txt in @INC (@INC contain
s: C:\Users\Tim\AppData\Local\Temp\par-Tim\cache-ef9b516290b60f6dc5518a4b5db3004
32676b908\inc\lib C:\Users\Tim\AppData\Local\Temp\par-Tim\cache-ef9b516290b60f6d
c5518a4b5db300432676b908\inc CODE(0x2cc0b14) CODE(0x2cc0e14)) at Biber.pm line 1
403

So is this specifically a biber related error, or am I doing something wrong? All help is much appreciated.

---

Solution

Althought my bib file was showing all unicode characters properly in my reference program (jabref) the encoding of the bib file seemed to be the problem (apparently jabref saved it as Cp1252?) After converting the bib file with an external text editor to UTF8, Everything works perfectly!

Answer 1

I tested a complete example with unicode characters using the XeLaTeX/biber combo, and it works fine. Your log shows that you're using an old biber version, and this may be the cause of your problem (changes to the Unicode sorting mechanism were added to biber lately). Try upgrading to biber v0.6.

EDIT: Here's the example that works for me:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Palatino Linotype}

\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{J01,
  author = {Jørgensen, J.},
  year = {2001},
  title = {Alpha áâäæèê},
}
\end{filecontents}

\bibliography{\jobname}

\begin{document}

\nocite{*}

\printbibliography

\end{document}