#1699 Blank Date-Added column
Dear BibDesk maintainers,
I am seeing a reproducible problem with the Added column in BibDesk 1.9.13 (build 6123) on macOS 26.7.1.
On one Mac, the Added column is blank for existing references, even though the .bib file contains Date-Added values and the values appear in the preview. On another Mac, the same file displays the dates correctly.
I also created a minimal .bib file containing a single reference with a Date-Added field. The Added column displays the date on the working Mac but is blank on the affected Mac.
I have established the following:
- Both Macs run macOS 26.7.1 and BibDesk 1.9.13, build 6123.
- The BibDesk executable SHA-256 checksums are identical.
- The code-signing identities and bundle metadata are identical.
- The problem disappears when I run BibDesk under a new macOS user account on the affected Mac.
- Resetting the main BibDesk preferences and replacing the BibDesk Application Support folder did not fix the problem.
Could you suggest what other per-user setting or environmental difference might cause BibDesk to fail to display Date-Added in the table while still showing it in the preview?
I can provide the minimal test bibliography and any further diagnostic output that would help.
Thanks
That sounds really weird. A difference I can think of is your preferences for the date format. We use your preference for the short date format. But I fond it hard to believe that this could go wrong. Perhaps there may also be a bug in parsing the date from the data, what format does the date have on your old items? And is the format different for newer items? Also, are you saying the problem does not occur for new items added, also when reopening the file? Or does it occur for any item in a file you open?
Yes, very weird and driving me crazy! I tried changing the date format in System settings. The format in the bib looks e.g like
date-added = {2005-10-11 08:39:45 -0700}
When I add a new item to the file, it shows today's date in the column, and this is saved in the bib file:
date-added = {2026-10-24 5:36:35 pm +0200},
OK, so I just added "pm" to the old date (date-added = {2005-10-11 08:39:45 pm -0700} and it worked, so you might be right and that at some point in the past I had a 24h format
That looks wrong. There should not be an am/pm, we explicitly tell the formatter to use a 24 hour format to be consistent and independent of your preferences. Apparently for you it depends on your preferences, which it definitely should not.
I may have some idea where the bug comes from. The documentation mentions something very stupid (basically that they do it deliberately wrong, what we say there seems to be just a suggestion rather than an instruction). Although the documentation does not say so, perhaps Apple has now also introduced that deliberate bug on macOS. (Which would be a deliberate bug with an added documentation bug). I may be able to fix this (although I cannot test this myself). But the fix may make the dates added in the mean time invalid. Apple has really taken the wrong way.
I uploaded a test version at https://bibdesk.sourceforge.io/BibDesk.zip. Could you please download this and test it out to see if that fixes this issue?
I tested it, but it could not open any .bib file - I didn't throw any error that I could see, but it didn't do anything. I could create a new bibliography, but that was unresponsive to adding a new bib file to it. I created an entry by hand, saved the file, and it couldn't read it back. The new saved file, however, did not show "am" in the time.
I see what was going wrong, though I am rather surprised it stops doing anything.
I replaced the test version (at the same location) with some better fixed. Could you try that?
Yes, that version works! It shows the Added dates in my original bib file. At least it does for those that have presumably well formed dates in that file on a 24h clock. Newer references that I added in the last month are blank. Those have "AM" or "PM" in the time (uppercase). In a test file I made with "pm" (lowercase) the date showed in the column. But I can fix those references and I would say the problem is solved.
No, these should also be fixed, and I thought I did, the casing should not matter. Can you give an example of such a date?
I replaced the test version again, this really should also interpret the dates that were added recently with the non-24-hour format.
There were a bunch with just a date, no time, all the same:
date-added = {2004-01-01}
and otherwise with capitalized PM, such as this:
date-added = {2026-10-24 2:53:06 PM +0200}