Biblatex doesn't compile. Probably .bib file not recognised

Question

I've spent many hours trying to get my bibliography working - unsuccessfully. I suspect that, somehow, my .bib file doesn't get recognised.

Help would be greatly appreciated.

MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{lscape} 
\usepackage[paper=portrait,pagesize]{typearea}
\usepackage[showframe=false]{geometry}
\usepackage{changepage}

\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{adjustbox}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel,csquotes,xpatch}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=authoryear, natbib]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{test.bib}


\usepackage{xurl} 
\usepackage[colorlinks,allcolors=blue]{hyperref}

\begin{document}
This is a test... test test\\

\cite{glaeser_gyourko}\\
\cite{hsieh-moretti:2019}\\
\cite{glaeser_gyourko}\\

\printbibliography

\end{document}

test.bib file:

@article{hsieh-moretti:2019,
Author = {Hsieh, Chang-Tai and Moretti, Enrico},
Title = {Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation},
Journal = {American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics},
Volume = {11},
Number = {2},
Year = {2019},
Month = {4},
Pages = {1-39},
DOI = {10.1257/mac.20170388},
URL = {https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388}
}

@article{glaeser_gyourko,
Author = {Glaeser, Edward and Gyourko, Joseph},
Title = {The Economic Implications of Housing Supply},
Journal = {Journal of Economic Perspectives},
Volume = {32},
Number = {1},
Year = {2018},
Month = {2},
Pages = {3-30},
DOI = {10.1257/jep.32.1.3},
URL = {https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.32.1.3}
}

In PDF it looks like this: enter image description here

I get the following information in the source viewer:

Process started
   
   INFO - This is Biber 2.14 INFO - Logfile is 'test.blg' INFO - Reading
   'test.bcf' INFO - Found 2 citekeys in bib section 0 INFO - Processing
   section 0 INFO - Globbing data source 'test.bib' INFO - Globbed data
   source 'test.bib' to test.bib INFO - Looking for bibtex format file
   'test.bib' for section 0 INFO - LaTeX decoding ... INFO - Found
   BibTeX data source 'test.bib'
   
   Process exited with error(s)

I use texmaker 5.0.4 on MacOS and I post my configurations here: enter image description here enter image description here

I really have very little idea on what goes on. Today, I started a work session, added a new source and it didn't work. I deleted the new source so that the bibliography would be the same as prior to me changing it, and it didn't work either. So, this let's me assume that, somehow, the program doesn't understand where the bibliography is. The .bib file and the document are in the same folder.

What I tried:

1. Triple checked code in bibliography using tools such as https://biblatex-linter.herokuapp.com/

2. Clear the cache of all documents.

3. change the natbib in the command \usepackage[backend=biber,style=authoryear, natbib]{biblatex} to biber -> doesn't seem to work.

4. Left out natbib and got same result. \usepackage[backend=biber,style=authoryear, natbib]{biblatex} => \usepackage[backend=biber,style=authoryear]{biblatex}

5. Add the command \usepackgage{natbitb} in addition to biblatex but this produces compatibility issues.

6. Add the codes \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} & \usepackage{babel,csquotes,xpatch} because they are recommendet by this biblatex cheat sheet: http://tug.ctan.org/info/biblatex-cheatsheet/biblatex-cheatsheet.pdf. Didn't change anything.

Thanks for your time!

Answer 1

I had a similar problem, what helped me was looking up the articles and rewriting them via the Google Scholar bibTex version.

The problem arose as I changed the name manually. This results in an error which is not recognized. And this threw me into researching exactly the same kind of .bib file not recognized error.

Your housing article should be formatted like this:

@article{hsieh2019housing,
  title={Housing constraints and spatial misallocation},
  author={Hsieh, Chang-Tai and Moretti, Enrico},
  journal={American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics},
  volume={11},
  number={2},
  pages={1--39},
  year={2019}
}

I found another source of this problem Citavi generates invalid bibtex syntax. Often the year field is not correctly filled or special characters are not escaped properly. Maybe these are data errors which have their origin in the sources not in Citavi, but nonetheless often Citavi does not export valid bibtex format.