Using references to a .bib file when using IEEEtran

I found that there are two things that I found are necessary to make the IEEEtran class compile:

1. There needs to be a at least one correct citation in your document one in your bib (in your case, bibi.bib) file.
2. In the tool chain, you need to compile with LaTeX (or equivalently PdfLaTeX), then once with BibTex, and then twice with LaTeX again to incorporate the bibliography and correct in-text referencing.

If either of these two things is not the case, I also get the same LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item error. Bizarrely, with a single citation it works for me, but after commenting it out it crashes again.

The apparent reason for this is that the IEEEtran class doesn't like empty bibliographies and can't deal with that. I haven't been able to find an underlying reason for that, though, nor a way to fix it.

You only need to give your bib file name to the \bibliography command at the location where your bibliography should appear and compile as many times as needed.

\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\usepackage[noadjust]{cite}

\begin{filecontents*}{bibi.bib}
     @ARTICLE{jj2,
   author = {Andreas Junghanns and Jonathan Schaeffer},
   title = {Sokoban: Enhancing general single-agent search methods using domain knowledge},
   journal = {Artificial Intelligence},
   year = {2001},
   volume = {129},
   pages = {219-251}
   }
\end{filecontents*}

\hyphenation{op-tical net-works semi-conduc-tor}    

\title{My Article's Title}

\author{Shay \\ \IEEEauthorblockN{some author afiliation}
\and
Pal5 \\ \IEEEauthorblockN{another affiliation}
}

\begin{document}
\maketitle


\begin{abstract}
The abstract goes here.
\end{abstract}
\IEEEpeerreviewmaketitle

\section{Introduction}
My intro... blah blah \cite{jj2}.

\section{Conclusion}
The conclusion goes here.

\section*{Acknowledgment}
We acknowledge the acknowledged acknowledgees.

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{bibi}
\end{document}