latex-compilation-troubleshooting

Run the full compile chain: pdflatex, then bibtex paper, then pdflatex twice more. Verify paper.bbl is non-empty and paper.blg shows zero warnings. If citations remain undefined, check that the bibkeys in your .bib file match the \\cite{} commands in the .tex source.

This error means your preamble is missing \\bibliographystyle{plain} before the \\bibliography{} command, not that your .bib entries are broken. Add the bibliographystyle line and rerun the full pdflatex-bibtex-pdflatex-pdflatex chain.

The real cause is usually a brace mismatch or formatting error earlier in the .bib file that makes BibTeX stop parsing before reaching those entries. Count braces with grep, extract the suspect entry to a standalone file, and test it with a minimal document to isolate the true culprit.

This cascade of errors typically means the last data row before \\bottomrule is missing its trailing \\\\ line terminator. Check the line immediately before \\bottomrule and add the missing \\\\ at the end of that row.

The algorithmic package often conflicts with elsarticle and certain MiKTeX configurations, producing 'algorithmic undefined' errors. The safest fix is to delete the algorithmic environment entirely or switch to the algorithm2e package instead.

Only delete explicitly named auxiliary files like paper.aux, paper.log, paper.out, paper.blg, paper.bbl, and paper.pdf. Never use the wildcard 'rm -f paper.*' because it also matches paper.tex and will destroy your source file.