Problem with updating packages (spost13 related)

[Carsten Preuss]

Dear Community,

I am facing problems when I try to update or download packages for Stata. In particular, I wanted to check whether the mtable command from the spost13 package needs an update as it takes infinitively long to compute (I stopped the program at some point). However, when I wanted to check, I got the following error message:

. which mtable
j:\ado\plus\m\mtable.ado
*! version 1.0.6 2014-08-14 | long freese | allow non-estimable

. findit spost13

. net from http://www.indiana.edu/~jslsoc/stata/
server refused to send file
http://www.indiana.edu/~jslsoc/stata/ either
  1)  is not a valid URL, or
  2)  could not be contacted, or
  3)  is not a Stata download site (has no stata.toc file).

current site is still http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/s/
r(672);

I would like to update my spost13 package, since I suspect the mtable command to be somehow damaged.

Can anybody help?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Carsten

[Sebastian Kripfganz]

 
 net from http://www.indiana.edu/~jslsoc/stata/

works on my computer.

[William Lisowski]

Since your version of mtable is up-to-date, let me suggest that your problem may be due to the underlying margins commands produced by mtable taking a very long time to run.

If the table you are describing is complex, start simple, and gradually increase the complexity. Or try a completely different but very simple table, like margins for a dichotomous variable (such as a gender variable whose values in most datasets include only male and female). If it works on something small, chances are good mtable is working and your problem is either complexity of the table or the number of observations.

Another option, especially if your dataset has a large number of observations, is to add the atmeans option, which probably isn't what you want to use, but which does speed up the calculations substantially, and will help you understand whether your copy of mtable is indeed functional.

[Carsten Preuss]

Thanks, Sebastian and William, for your replies!

Indeed, I figured out that it is just a complex table that I want to calculate. However, as a matter of fact, -mtable- takes significantly longer to compute than the -margins- command.

My question also aimed at the error message I get. Somehow Stata does faces trouble to connect to outside servers while earlier it was all fine. I was wondering If anybody was coming across this error message as well and knows how to fix Stata in this regard.

Thanks a lot!

Carsnte

[William Lisowski]

The problem seems to be at your end, since it isn't a problem for others.

First, does

net from http://www.indiana.edu/~jslsoc/stata/

continue to fail?

Next, let's try the SSC archive: does

net from http://fmwww.bc.edu/RePEc/bocode/d

similarly fail?

If both fail, I'd suspect something has changed at your institution or internet provider. If you have a colleague at your institution using Stata, I'd ask them if they can duplicate your problem. If you have a portable computer, try duplicating the problem from somewhere else.

The output of help netio discusses http proxy servers. Perhaps your institution or internet provider has recently implemented an http proxy server, which you now need to acknowledge in your Stata configuration.

[Carsten Preuss]

The first command does not work, however the latter. I restarted Stata and oddly both work now. I don't know the magic behind it, but apparently the problem has resolved.

Thanks again for your help!