[OS X TeX] BibDesk: Unable to save metadata cache file

[Winfried Zettelmeyer]

Adam,
you are right. I could not provoke the Error message "Unable to save  
metadata cache file" with a new entry that contains linebreaks.
With BibDesk running fine
1) I made the entry, saved the .bib file, entered \footfullcite[,  
passim]{WZ2006This-is-a-test-} into the source .tex file, ran Latex,  
ran BibTeX, got just a normal message in the console about a missing  
Address and looked at the entry with BBEdit:
%% This BibTeX bibliography file was created using BibDesk.
%% http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/
%% Created for Winfried Zettelmeyer at 2006-03-17 12:01:39 +0100
%% Saved with string encoding Western (ISO Latin 1)
@misc{WZ2006This-is-a-test-,
	Author = {WZ},
	Date-Added = {2006-03-17 11:58:18 +0100},
	Date-Modified = {2006-03-17 12:01:28 +0100},
	Title = {This is a test entry which
deliberately contains

linebreaks
},
	Year = {2006}}

Then I ran Latex twice and got a completely normal footnot in  
the .pdf file which had even the "bad" linebreaks eliminated:
17WZ This is a test entry which deliberately contains linebreaks.  
2006 , passim.

So last time  BibDesk did not work for another reason. If the error  
comes up again I will go right away into the console log using / 
Applications/Utilities/Console.app as you indicated.
Thanks for this tip and for your interest
Winfried

On 16 Mar 2006, at 16:44, Adam R. Maxwell wrote:
On Mar 15, 2006, at 14:42, Winfried Zettelmeyer wrote:
> Adam, thanks for your answer.
> As I detected later, the .bib file had linebreaks in the title  
> field of one entry. When that was corrected everything was fine.  
> Before, different from what your answer suggests, new entries were  
> not recognised.
The error message will not affect the .bib file as written by  
BibDesk; you'll get a different error message when a file save error  
occurs.  However, it is very likely that BibTeX (note spelling :)  
will choke on such characters.
> I looked at the log file and did not find anything around the time  
> when the error turned up, but I might have overlooked something in  
> the thousands of log lines.
> If the error repeats - possibly it is provocable by changing an  
> entry directly in the .bib file - I will look immediatly into the log.
More than likely it was some strange Unicode newline.  I'm still  
surprised that it would affect the metadata, because that saves files  
based on citekey as filename.  Do you use the title as citekey?
Adam

> Winfried
> On 15 Mar 2006, at 21:15, Adam Maxwell wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 15, 2006, at 10:47AM, Winfried Zettelmeyer  
> <Winfried at Zettelmeyer.com> wrote:
>> Hallo all,
>> I have been learning and using Bibtex now for a week and it works
>> very well. However I get this message (no idea what it means) every
>> time I try to save the .bib file. The BibteX console does not tell my
>> anything strange when compiling (the usual warnings about empty
>> fields), I can make new entries into the BibTeX template, TeXshop
>> recognises the \footfullcite command of the jurabib package when
>> entering the new source and puts a footnote reference, but the
>> footnote remains empty with ? after any amount of Latexing and
>> Bibtexing.
>> What to do ? Is my bib file lost and do I have to start all over ?
>
> That warning occurs when BibDesk is unable to save the Spotlight  
> metadata cache; you should never see it in practice, so I'd like to  
> find out why it's popping up.  Do you see anything in the console  
> log using /Applications/Utilities/Console.app?  There should be a  
> more detailed description of the error.
>
> It has no effect on the ability to save your .bib file, so that  
> should be just fine.  It also is unrelated to any footnote/cite  
> problems you may be having.
>
> -- 
> Adam
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