Stata 18 is randomly shutting down

[Marc Pelow]

Hello,

I've been troubleshooting an issue with Stata randomly shutting down after running a do-file, but haven't been able to find a solution yet. There's no error message to share; after reopening Stata, it simply asks if I want to continue with the original or backup file. Although I'm still in the process of reproducing the error, it seems that the issue isn't specific to a particular do-file.

Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[Clyde Schechter]

FWIW, I have had similar experiences. It only happens occasionally. And in every instance, for me, it has been when running a do-file with a very large data set. I imagine, without evidence, that the problem is arising somehow from memory management, although usually an attempt to get more memory than the OS allows results in a polite error message that the OS has declined. I say this because these breaks often occur at points in the code where on other occasions I have had the OS refuse me memory.

My other thought, again without evidence, is that there is a rogue pointer somewhere. I say that just because in my own C++ coding, accessing a pointer to anywhere in memory that has not been allocated to my own program uniformly leads to an abrupt exit with no messages.

If I had a reproducible example, I would have sent it to Technical Support long ago. But I don't. In fact, in every single instance, when I have restarted Stata and run the same code with the same data set immediately after the program crash, it runs without incident.

[Marc Pelow]

On my end, it also appears to be triggered when executing do files handling large datasets. However, this issue didn't arise 6-8 months ago when I last worked with the dataset. Unfortunately, restarting doesn't guarantee that the code will run without encountering the same issue again.

[Salem Alsanousi]

Hi Marc Pelow

I am currently facing the exact same issue you are describing. Stata just crashes even though I am sure my memory is larger can handle the dataset. I also did not have this issue when I last ran the same results. Did you happen to find a solution to this?

[Marc Pelow]

Unfortunately not. The issue still exists on my end.

[Jeff Pitblado (StataCorp)]

Did the Stata 18 update on 16oct2024 (see item 10) not resolve this random crashing?

[Marc Pelow]

At least for me, it didn't. I contacted the Stata technical support but didn't manage to send them the required dataset and .do file yet.

[Jeff Pitblado (StataCorp)]

I encourage you to provide Stata's technical support group enough information for them to reproduce the problem.