[texhax] Mysterious hang-up using bibtex.

[Rolf Turner]

I am encountering a mysterious phenomenon when I try to use bibtex.

I do "latex <filename>" and get the expected warnings about undefined
references.  I then do "bibtex filename", couple of lines of screen output,
and then the procedure just hangs; no prompt string until I do <ctrl>-c.

E.g.

     latex demo
     .
     .
     .
     bibtex demo
     This is BibTeX, Version 0.99d (TeX Live 2012)
     The top-level auxiliary file: demo.aux

Then nothing until <ctrl>-c is pressed.

But then (usually it seems) after a ***long*** while and repeated 
re-attempts,
everything suddenly works!  I then get:

     bibtex demo
     This is BibTeX, Version 0.99d (TeX Live 2012)
     The top-level auxiliary file: demo.aux
     The style file: plain.bst
     Database file #1: refs.bib

I run "latex demo" again (a couple of times) and all is well; the dvi 
file is
as it should be.  After that, I can process any latex file and bibtex runs
on it immediately.  Until after a re-boot (I think!).

What on earth could be going on?

One gets the impression that bibtex could be having trouble finding 
plain.bst
--- the hang-up seems to come just before this file name is echoed. But 
*why*?

The file plain.bst seems to be in the right place:

     /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf-dist/bibtex/bst/base/plain.bst

and if bibtex can find it "eventually" why can it not find it immediately?

Can anyone give me any suggestions as to how I might track down the
problem?

As the forgoing output indicates I am using texlive 2012.  I am running 
under
Fedora 17.  If any further information would be useful, just ask.

I have attached demo.tex and refs.bib (minimal example) so that anyone
who wants to can experiment with them.  As far as I can tell there is 
nothing
untoward about either of these input files.  In all probability no-one 
will have
any problems in running latex and bibtex on them.

Thanks for any insights.

     cheers,

         Rolf Turner


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