Network meta i and network meta C

[Aura Ajaree]

I am doing a network meta analysis and having an issue in running network meta i commands.
The command is not working even I put ", force". I have checked on the network map and found some disconnections.
My stata board appears as below:

network meta i
Warning: network is disconnected, so network meta models will be wrong
(Use force option to override - at your own risk)
r(498);

. network meta i, force
Warning: network is disconnected, so network meta models will be wrong
Warning: inconsistency model requested, but there is no source of inconsistency
variable des_AE already defined


Your kind suggestions to fix this command would be highly appreciated.
Yours sincerely,
Ajaree

[William Lisowski]

Please review the Statalist FAQ linked to from the top of the page, as well as from the Advice on Posting link on the page you used to create your post. Note especially sections 9-12 on how to best pose your question.

Section 12.1 is particularly relevant here.

12.1 What to say about your commands and your problem
...
If you are using community-contributed (also known as user-written) commands, explain that and say where they came from: the Stata Journal, SSC, or other archives. This helps (often crucially) in explaining your precise problem, and it alerts readers to commands that may be interesting or useful to them.

The more you help others understand your problem, the more likely others are to be able to help you solve your problem.

In this case, it appears you are referring to the package from the Stata Journal described by

net sj 15-4 st0410

The output of help network meta tells us

Difficulties

    network meta attempts to spot various difficulties that may make particular network
    meta-analysis models unsuitable for your data.  The diagnostics are computed by network setup.
    If instead you used network import, you will get a warning that the diagnostics cannot be done.

    1. A disconnected network arises when the treatments can be divided into two or more groups in
       such a way that no studies make comparisons between groups.  In this case, network meta is
       unable to fit models, and you should fit models separately by component, for example,
       network meta c if _component==1.

    2. A network has no degrees of freedom for inconsistency when it is tree-shaped (that is, when
       there are no loops in the network).  In this case, network meta will be able to fit
       consistency models but will refuse to fit inconsistency models.

    3. A network has no degrees of freedom for heterogeneity when no design is represented by
       multiple studies.  In this case, network meta will refuse to fit random-effects models.  If
       there are degrees of freedom for inconsistency, then you will be able to fit random-effects
       consistency models because these treat inconsistency as heterogeneity.  You will need to
       override network meta's default with the force option.

In this case, #1 appears to describe your problem and the workaround.