# Warnings by JabRef start

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/warnings-by-jabref-start/1532>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [February 26, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/warnings-by-jabref-start/1532 "2019-02-26T11:12:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ochmana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a5b964/32.png) [@ochmana](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/ochmana)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/warnings-by-jabref-start/1532/1 "2019-02-26T11:12:50Z")

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Dear ladies and gentlemen,  
Here is my question: each time at a start-up of Jabref I get a pop-up window “Warning: (name of my library)” with the following messages:

1. Line 29614: Found corrupted BibTeX key (contains whitespaces).
2. Line 36084: Found corrupted BibTeX key (comma missing).

It is not crucial, yet annoying.  
I assume, these whitespaces and commas missing were generated when I decided to quit using Quiqqa and switched to JabRef and imported a list of refs from Quiqqa file.  
My question is then - what are these lines with the numbers and where I could find those BibTex keys to correct it. Looking through 2.5k list of refs one by one would be too dull…  
Sorry if such question was already discussed - at least I did not find anything like that.  
thank you and best regards

PS. JabRef 4.3.1  
Windows 7 6.1 amd64  
Java 1.8.0\_181

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**Author:** ![mlep](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/mlep/32/387_2.png) [@mlep](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/mlep)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 2:08pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/warnings-by-jabref-start/1532/2 "2019-02-26T14:08:52Z")

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You have to open your BibTeX file with a text editor and go to its 29614th line (most text editor have a function “Go to line…”). Then remove the whitespaces in the BibTeX key.  
Similar thing for the 36084th line of your BibTeX file.

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**Author:** ![tobiasdiez](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tobiasdiez/32/340_2.png) [@tobiasdiez](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tobiasdiez)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2019, 12:07pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/warnings-by-jabref-start/1532/3 "2019-02-27T12:07:56Z")

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I just improved the error message so that it should be easier to find the entry with the problematic key. You can try out the latest development version from [http://builds.jabref.org/master/](http://builds.jabref.org/master/). Please remember to make a backup of your library before using this version.

Moreover, I would still advice to use a text editor to fix the issue (and not JabRef’s interface), because this warning message signals that JabRef was not able to correctly read your bib file and tried to intelligently guess the correct format of the reported entries.

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**Author:** ![ochmana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a5b964/32.png) [@ochmana](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/ochmana)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2019, 1:24pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/warnings-by-jabref-start/1532/4 "2019-02-27T13:24:37Z")

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All: Thanks a lot for the tips!

Tobias Diez: Thanks, I’ll try with the next update - I’m just a humble (castrated) user on my laptop with no rights to install anything, so I’ll use the text editor.

Best regards,

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**Author:** ![Siedlerchr](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/siedlerchr/32/216_2.png) [@Siedlerchr](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Siedlerchr)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2019, 2:56pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/warnings-by-jabref-start/1532/5 "2019-02-27T14:56:43Z")

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@ochmana  
You can use the jar Version of Jabef simply and run it with java -jar JabRef.jar .  
No need for installation.

Regards