The new fixltx2e breaks the figure* enviroment \RequirePackage{fixltx2e} \documentclass[twocolumn]{article} \begin{document} \begin{figure*} x \end{figure*} \end{document} gives ) (\end occurred when \iftrue on line 18 was incomplete) Package: fixltx2e 2014/05/13 v1.1q fixes to LaTeX -- Ulrike Fischer http://www.troubleshooting-tex.de/