mata object already exists error when using stats() option with estimates tab

[Tim Cheney]

esttab works fine to give me the N but estimates tab won't give me any thing with the stats option
. estimates tab rncomm, stats(N)
Mata object __000003 already existsr(110);

*** esttab can give me the N
. esttab rncomm

----------------------------
(1)
rncomm
----------------------------
satjob2_10~t -0.373*
(-2.23)

_cons 92.59***
(224.11)
----------------------------
N 59
----------------------------
t statistics in parentheses
* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

*** estimates tab works fine with no options
. estimates tab rncomm

---------------------------
Variable | rncomm
-------------+-------------
satjob2_10~t | -.37328843
_cons | 92.594583
---------------------------

*** estimates tab thinks the syntax is fine
. estimates tab rncomm, stats()

---------------------------
Variable | rncomm
-------------+-------------
satjob2_10~t | -.37328843
_cons | 92.594583
---------------------------

**** Why?
. estimates tab rncomm, stats(N)
Mata object __000003 already existsr(110);

. version
version 17.0

[William Lisowski]

Welcome to Statalist.

I am unable to reproduce your problem using an available example dataset on Stata 17.

clear all
sysuse auto
quietly regress price weight 
estimates store gnxl
esttab gnxl
estimates tab gnxl
estimates tab gnxl, stats()
estimates tab gnxl, stats(N)

. clear all

. sysuse auto
(1978 automobile data)

. quietly regress price weight 

. estimates store gnxl

. esttab gnxl

----------------------------
                      (1)   
                    price   
----------------------------
weight              2.044***
                   (5.42)   

_cons              -6.707   
                  (-0.01)   
----------------------------
N                      74   
----------------------------
t statistics in parentheses
* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

. estimates tab gnxl

---------------------------
    Variable |    gnxl     
-------------+-------------
      weight |  2.0440626  
       _cons | -6.7073534  
---------------------------

. estimates tab gnxl, stats()

---------------------------
    Variable |    gnxl     
-------------+-------------
      weight |  2.0440626  
       _cons | -6.7073534  
---------------------------

. estimates tab gnxl, stats(N)

---------------------------
    Variable |    gnxl     
-------------+-------------
      weight |  2.0440626  
       _cons | -6.7073534  
-------------+-------------
           N |         74  
---------------------------

.

You will have noticed that choosing a monospace font is not enough to flog the Statalist Forum software into faithfully reproducing pasted Stata output (the software wants to squeeze out excess spaces). Surrounding output with code delimiters [CODE] and [/CODE] does the trick.

[Tim Cheney]

It turned out the problem was caused by collect commands run prior to this command. Assume some conflice over mata namespace.