Weird compile result -- bug?

[Paul A. Rubin]

On 10/15/21 12:34 PM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
> Am Freitag, dem 15.10.2021 um 11:51 -0400 schrieb Paul A. Rubin:
>> Over on the user list, there's a lengthy thread (actually set of
>> threads) triggered by user Rich Shepard trying to compile a report
>> whose
>> bibliography stubbornly refused to appear. Rich was using biblatex.
>> After copies trial and error, Rich got the report to work, but with
>> no
>> explanation why.
>>
>> I was beating on a copy of it (which I am not at liberty to share)
>> and
>> discovered that if made any non-fatal change to the preamble, the
>> bibliography would show up. In particular, just adding \usepackage{}
>> (with the argument deliberately empty) to the preamble in LyX coaxed
>> the
>> bibliography to show up.
>>
>> Comparing the .tex files that LyX exported with and without the
>> \usepackage{} command, I discovered two changes. One of course was
>> the
>> inclusion of \usepackage{}. The other was that
>> \usepackage[style=authoryear]{biblatex} in the original document
>> morphed
>> into \usepackage[style=authoryear,backend=bibtex8]{biblatex} in the
>> modified document.
>>
>> So I went to the original document and, in the bibliography settings,
>> changed the processor option from default to bibtex8, and sure enough
>> the original compiled correctly.
>>
>> I'm not sure if this is a bug or something the user is responsible
>> for
>> knowing (it was news to me, but I never use biblatex). So I'm
>> reporting
>> it here to let wiser minds decide.
> Undecidable without a MWE.
>
> Jürgen
>
>
Here's an MWE and the associated .bib file. Since I installed biber, I 
no longer fail to generate a bibliography under any scenario, but I can 
still reproduce behavior that I think is a bug. This is with LyX 2.3.6.1 
on Linux Mint 20.2 using TeXLive 2019. I'm using the PDF (pdflatex) 
output format throughout.

 1. View the document (which compiles correctly), then run 'grep
    biblatex dev_mwe.tex' in the LyX buffer directory. The relevant
    output line is "\usepackage[style=authoryear]{biblatex}".
 2. Make an arbitrary text change in the document body (anywhere), to
    force LyX to recompile. Repeat the previous step. The key line in
    the .tex file is unchanged.
 3. In Document > Settings... > LaTeX Preamble, add a space at the end
    of the preamble and repeat the first step. The line in the .tex file
    changes to "\usepackage[style=authoryear,backend=bibtex8]{biblatex}"
    (i.e., the "backend" setting is added).

This also happens if I edit the text in the \lehead{}, \rohead{}, 
\refoot{} or \lofoot{} commands, or if I insert \usepackage{} in the 
preamble, or basically if I make any non-fatal change to the preamble.

It makes no sense to me that any of those changes would affect 
bibliography processing.

Paul

 1.



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