Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text
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| Error Message | The named reference $1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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| Category | Pages with incorrect ref formatting |
| System message page | Cite error references no text |
Overview
Issues and resolution
A named reference was invoked but never defined. The reference may be defined inline or in the reference list.
You may have misspelled the reference name, or used special characters that look the same but are actually different. For instance, <ref name="foo-bar">content</ref> and <ref name="foo–bar">content</ref> are not the same: one contains a hyphen while the other uses an ndash. To avoid this sort of error, try to stick to the characters available on the standard keyboard. Alternatively, the full reference may have been removed from the article with other content, such as when removing information under BLP concerns. In this case the text of the reference will be available in the page history, and you can convert the single <ref /> tag into a full reference.
List-defined references may have this error if the closing </ref> tag is missing or malformed. This would normally result in a A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). message, but the missing tag causes the reference to "eat" the reference following in the list. Since that reference is undefined, the The named reference $1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page). for both references. This can be very confusing, as the order of references in the list may not match the order used in the content.
Examples
Standard
Here minim is invoked, but never defined:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.<ref name=ipsum>Reference 1</ref> Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.<ref name=minim/> Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.<ref name=duis>Reference 3</ref>Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
==References==
{{reflist}}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.[1] Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.[2] Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.[3]Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
- References
Now minim appears to be defined, but the / actually invokes the reference before the definition; note the closing </ref> shows:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.<ref name=ipsum>Reference 1</ref> Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.<ref name=minim/>Reference 2</ref> Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.<ref name=duis>Reference 3</ref>Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
==References==
{{reflist}}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.[1] Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.[2]Reference 2</ref> Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.[3]Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
- References
List-defined references
When using the LDR scheme, the reference list is not necessarily in the same order that the references are actually used in the content; in this example, the list is ordered alphabetically by reference name. Since references are parsed and checked by content order, errors in the LDR list may not seem to be attached to the proper reference. Here, the referenced named excepteur is improperly closed— it causes the reference following in the list named ipsum to not close, thus both references show an error.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.<ref name=ipsum/> Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.<ref name=minim/> Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.<ref name=duis/> Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.<ref name=excepteur/> Curabitur pretium tincidunt lacus.
==References==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name=duis>duis</ref>
<ref name=excepteur>excepteur<ref>
<ref name=ipsum>ipsum</ref>
<ref name=minim>minim</ref>
}}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.[1] Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.[2] Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.[3] Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.[4] Curabitur pretium tincidunt lacus.
- References