Error when Importing Bibtex using RefNotes

Hello, I’m new to Tiddlywiki and excited to using Refnotes plugin for tiddlywiki. But I’ve run into the following issue: When I try to import to paste a Bibtex text into the “Paste Your Bibtex Entry”, the “Import Bibtex” tiddler appears but it imports the bibtex just as regular text and doesn’t process any of the Bibtex fields. See image below. This happens with any Bibtex I try to import. The exact same Bibtex copied and pasted into the Refnotes demo tiddlywiki (Refnotes 1.9.0 — references, citations, footnotes and abbreviations in Tiddlywiki) is processed correctly. Could someone help me troubleshoot this?

Background: I’ve installed tiddlywiki 5.3.7 locally via Node.js. Refnotes 1.9.0. The Problem occurs with both Edge and Firefox browsers. I placed the refnotes source folder into my tiddlywiki’s plugins folder. One thing that may provide a clue to the problem is that in my plugins settings, I see the Refnotes plugin when I expand that it only has a “content” tab (see image below). However in the Refnotes demo, there are multiple tabs (readme, license, history, content) even though we are using the same plugin version (1.9.0). Does that indicate I installed the plugin incorrectly? I followed the instructions for install Refnotes locally for Node.js as described on the RefNotes demo page.

Any help on this is appreciated! Thank you!

uups. I did just see, that you did import it from the clipboard. You need to save it as a .bib file and then import it. So the elements will be imported as fields.

I did delete my first post. It was wrong. – But I did use the TW BibTeX plugin, and not Refnotes. So I am not really sure.

Would you please paste the sample content here? Are you sure the bibtex data have the correct format?
When you import non-standard bibtex data, the problem appears.

Refnotes, use the same bibtex plugin!

From the screenshot, I see you have the bibtex record with the title. {...{{....}}}
Seems , this is the source of error

Thank you for looking into this. Those additional curly brakets are for case protection from BetterBibtex plugin in Zotero. I removed the curly brakets and I still have the error:

@article{abrahamianMicrobiologyAnimalBite2011,
  title = {Microbiology of Animal Bite Wound Infections},
  author = {Abrahamian, Fredrick M. and Goldstein, Ellie J. C.},
  date = {2011-04},
  journaltitle = {Clinical Microbiology Reviews},
  shortjournal = {Clin Microbiol Rev},
  volume = {24},
  number = {2},
  pages = {231--246},
  publisher = {American Society for Microbiology},
  issn = {0893-8512, 1098-6618},
  doi = {10.1128/cmr.00041-10},
  url = {https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/CMR.00041-10},
  urldate = {2025-07-20},
  abstract = {SUMMARYThe microbiology of animal bite wound infections in humans is often polymicrobial, with a broad mixture of aerobic and anaerobic microorganisms. Bacteria recovered from infected bite wounds are most often reflective of the oral flora of the biting animal, which can also be influenced by the microbiome of their ingested prey and other foods. Bacteria may also originate from the victim's own skin or the physical environment at the time of injury. Our review has focused on bite wound infections in humans from dogs, cats, and a variety of other animals such as monkeys, bears, pigs, ferrets, horses, sheep, Tasmanian devils, snakes, Komodo dragons, monitor lizards, iguanas, alligators/crocodiles, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, prairie dogs, swans, and sharks. The medical literature in this area has been made up mostly of small case series or case reports. Very few studies have been systematic and are often limited to dog or cat bite injuries. Limitations of studies include a lack of established or inconsistent criteria for an infected wound and a failure to utilize optimal techniques in pathogen isolation, especially for anaerobic organisms. There is also a lack of an understanding of the pathogenic significance of all cultured organisms. Gathering information and conducting research in a more systematic and methodical fashion through an organized research network, including zoos, veterinary practices, and rural clinics and hospitals, are needed to better define the microbiology of animal bite wound infections in humans.},
  langid = {english},
  year = {2011},
  zotero-key = {5UB7QVVT}
}

I’ve get this error on my system with any Bibtex (BibLatex) I use. But I don’t get this error when I use the exact same bibtex’s on RefNotes demo.

The file structure of my tiddlywiki is as follows:

.
├── plugins
│   └── refnotes
│       ├── history.tid
│       ├── license.tid
│       ├── macros
│       │   ├── abbr.tid
│       │   ├── APA
│       │   │   ├── authors.tid
│       │   │   ├── bibliography-helper.tid
│       │   │   ├── bibliography.tid
│       │   │   ├── ref-helper.tid
│       │   │   ├── ref.tid
│       │   │   └── showrefs.tid
│       │   ├── bibtex
│       │   │   ├── find-refs.tid
│       │   │   ├── process-entries.tid
│       │   │   ├── regexprefs.js
│       │   │   ├── regexprefs.js.meta
│       │   │   └── utility.tid
│       │   ├── find.tid
│       │   ├── footnote.tid
│       │   ├── numbered
│       │   │   └── refnum.tid
│       │   ├── search-ui.tid
│       │   ├── showabbrs.tid
│       │   ├── showfnotes.tid
│       │   └── stretch-text.tid
│       ├── plugin.info
│       ├── readme.tid
│       ├── styles
│       │   ├── abbr.css
│       │   ├── abbr.css.meta
│       │   ├── bibtex-details.css
│       │   ├── bibtex-details.css.meta
│       │   ├── bibtex-entryview.css
│       │   ├── bibtex-entryview.css.meta
│       │   ├── bibtex.tid
│       │   ├── dropzone.css
│       │   ├── dropzone.css.meta
│       │   ├── footnote-counter.css
│       │   ├── footnote-counter.css.meta
│       │   ├── library.css
│       │   ├── library.css.meta
│       │   ├── showfnotes.css
│       │   ├── showfnotes.css.meta
│       │   ├── table-borderless.css
│       │   ├── table-borderless.css.meta
│       │   ├── tooltip.css
│       │   └── tooltip.css.meta
│       ├── templates
│       │   └── reflist
│       │       ├── apa
│       │       │   ├── article.tid
│       │       │   ├── book.tid
│       │       │   ├── default.tid
│       │       │   ├── inproceedings.tid
│       │       │   ├── patent.tid
│       │       │   ├── thesis.tid
│       │       │   └── website.tid
│       │       └── numbered
│       │           ├── article.tid
│       │           ├── book.tid
│       │           ├── default.tid
│       │           └── website.tid
│       ├── ui
│       │   ├── bibtexlibrary.tid
│       │   └── dropzone.tid
│       └── viewtemplates
│           ├── article.tid
│           ├── book.tid
│           ├── default.tid
│           ├── helper.tid
│           ├── incollection.tid
│           ├── inproceedings.tid
│           ├── main.tid
│           ├── thesis.tid
│           ├── unpublished.tid
│           └── website.tid
├── tiddlers
│   └── $__StoryList.tid
└── tiddlywiki.info

Would you mind testing on a clean wiki on your system? Please ensure you’re using the same version of Refnotes available on GitHub.

Hi @Mohammad,

Yes, I have tested on a clean wiki system. I still run into the probelm.

I will show you what I did step-by-step:

  1. I installed tiddlywiki (5.3.7) with nodejs and initated a new wiki
sudo npm install -g tiddlywiki
tiddlywiki mywiki --init server
  1. Download refnotes from Github
git clone https://github.com/kookma/TW-Refnotes
  1. Install the plugin by copying & pasting the “refnotes” folder from the TW-Refnotes/source folder into mywiki/plugins

You missed one important step, which is adding the official BibTeX plugin. After installing TiddlyWiki with sudo npm install -g tiddlywiki (this is done once since you are installing TiddlyWiki system-wide using the -g switch), proceed to set up a new wiki.

Step 1.

tiddlywiki mywiki --init server

Step 2.
Add official plugins by editing the tiddlywiki.info file.
For your case, you need to add bibtex, so it should look like this:

{
    "description": "Basic client-server edition",
    "plugins": [
        "tiddlywiki/tiddlyweb",
        "tiddlywiki/filesystem",
        "tiddlywiki/highlight",
        "tiddlywiki/bibtex"   <-------------------------------bibtex added to the tiddlywiki.info-------------
    ],
    "themes": [
        "tiddlywiki/vanilla",
        "tiddlywiki/snowwhite"
    ],

Step 3. Download Refnotes from GitHub and install it by copying and pasting the “refnotes” folder from the TW-Refnotes/source folder into the mywiki/plugins directory.

There are more efficient methods to achieve this, but this highlights the source of the error.

That worked. I was missing the bibtex plugin.
Thank you!!

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