How do I debug an r(9999) error when loading a C plugin?

[Michael Anbar]

I'm following the instructions here (http://www.stata.com/plugins/ ) for creating a Stata plugin. I'm using Stata 14.1 MP on a Windows 7 64-bit machine, and Visual Studio 2012. I downloaded hello.c, stplugin.c, and stplugin.h, followed the instructions for creating a C DLL project in Visual Studio, and compiled the plugin. It compiled successfully. However, when I place "hello.dll" in my working directly and run this code in a do-file:

capture program drop myhello
program myhello, plugin using("hello.dll")
plugin call myhello

I get this error:

Could not load plugin: .\hello.dll
r(9999);

The error code -r(9999)- doesn't have a help file either. How do I begin debugging an error like this? The C plugin compiles successfully, the do-file and the resulting DLL file are placed in the same directory, and as far as I can tell, I'm following the instructions from Statacorp correctly. Where do I start? The -r(9999)- error message isn't helpful, and there aren't any debugging instructions on Statacorp's page.

Where do I start looking for the problem? Without any information besides "Could not load plugin", I don't even know how to begin debugging this.

[wbuchanan]

Have you tried specifying an absolute path to the dll file?

[Michael Anbar]

Have you tried specifying an absolute path to the dll file?

Yes. I get the same error.

[Hua Peng (StataCorp)]

If your Stata is 64bit, you need compile the dll as 64bit instead of 32bit. To find out if your Stata is 64bit or 32bit, type -about- in Stata command Window.

[Michael Anbar]

If your Stata is 64bit, you need compile the dll as 64bit instead of 32bit. To find out if your Stata is 64bit or 32bit, type -about- in Stata command Window.

That was precisely the problem. Thank you!