Base `histogram` returns syntax errors

[Quan Le]

Hi all,

I'm struggling with broken calls to

histogram

. The minimum reproducible example is rather silly:

. clear

. sysuse auto
(1978 automobile data)

. twoway histogram price
invalid syntax
r(198);

. histogram price
(bin=8, start=3291, width=1576.875)
invalid syntax
r(198);

. which histogram
/Applications/Stata/ado/base/h/histogram.ado
*! version 1.3.6  03apr2025

. macro list
S_level:        95
F1:             help advice;
F2:             describe;
F7:             save
F8:             use
S_ADO:          BASE;SITE;.;PERSONAL;PLUS;OLDPLACE
S_StataMP:      MP
S_StataSE:      SE
S_OS:           MacOSX
S_OSDTL:        15.5.0
S_MACH:         Mac (Apple Silicon)

. update all
(contacting https://www.stata.com)

Update status
    Last check for updates:     28 Jul 2025
    New update available:       none         (as of 28 Jul 2025)
    Current update level:       26 Feb 2025  (what's new)

The Stata version is StataNow/MP 18.5 for Mac (Apple Silicon) Revision 26 Feb 2025.

I can upload

histogram.ado

but that seems to be discouraged by forum norms / it's StataCorp's IP, so I'll refrain until asked to do so.

Thanks!

[Andrew Musau]

You should first update Stata. If that doesn't resolve the issue, you may need to reinstall Stata from scratch. histogram is an official command that comes bundled with your Stata installation, so there should be no need to upload any separate ado files.

update all

If none of these steps work, contact Technical Services for assistance: https://www.stata.com/support/tech-support/contact/.

[Quan Le]

Thanks. Sorry that I just edited the minimum example to include the

update all

call.

Will contact tech support.

[Hemanshu Kumar]

You should probably do a

set trace on

to see what exactly is throwing the error. It is not histogram.ado itself. That file actually calls graph twoway histogram. You are also separately getting an error with twoway histogram. So that's a clue that it's some program / file called by graph twoway histogram that may have been altered / corrupted.

[Theo Van Ostrom]

Hi Quan, did you ever figure out what was happening here? I am having the exact same issue.