This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting. |
This page will help you to fix the cite error message:
A list-defined reference with the name "$1" has been invoked, but is not defined in the <references>
tag (see the help page).
- If you have read this help page and find something missing or confusing, please discuss it at the main talk page.
- Please reference this page and the page where you have the problem so we can understand your issues.
- For basic information on the footnotes system, see Referencing for beginners; for advanced help, see Footnotes.
Overview edit
References may be defined within the reference list:
{{reflist|refs= <ref name=rename1>refcontent1</ref> }}
Note: It is possible to get this error message when nesting footnotes in list-defined references, unfortunately the only fix in this situation is to not use list-defined references for entries that are nested.
Issues and resolution edit
- A list-defined reference has no content between the
<ref>...</ref>
tags. - This error message does not show if {{reflist}} is used.
- Footnotes are nested inside list-defined references. This is a known bug, for now just do not use list-defined references.
Examples edit
The reference named foo is defined but has no content:
<ref name="foo" /> <references> <ref name="foo"></ref> </references>
Cite error: A list-defined reference with the name "foo" has been invoked, but is not defined in the <references>
tag (see the help page).
Technical edit
Pages with this error message are placed into Pages with incorrect ref formatting. The system message page is at Cite error empty references define.