st: Stata 13/12 for Mac and Mavericks

[cnguyen@stata.com]

We have been receiving questions about whether Stata 13 (and Stata 12) are
compatible with the latest Mac OS X, "Mavericks".

The short answer is yes, with the caveat that we are releasing an update to
Stata 13 next week to work around a bug which is either in Mavericks or in
Java when run on Mavericks.  It makes us feel better to know that the bug
isn't in Stata, but it can affect Stata nonetheless, so we are finalizing a
workaround.  Stata 12 is not affected by this.

Let me provide a few more details on this bug for those interested.  As I
said, the bug is either in Mavericks or in Java on Mavericks.  When a C
program like Stata invokes Java code on Mavericks, the size of the memory
"stack" available to the C program is changed when it should not change.  This
can lead to a future crash.  We have reached out to both Apple and Oracle to
report this interaction between their products, but neither has yet released a
fix although they have both are aware of the issue.

Only a few features in Stata 13 use Java, namely the Project Manager, the GUI
for the -power- command, the -import delimited- command and GUI, https and ftp
protocols (regular http is not affected), and the Mata _docx*() functions.  To
trigger the bug, you have to first use one of those features yet you may still
not encounter the bug.  If you don't use one of the above features, or you are
using Stata 12, there is no chance of the bug affecting you.

-Chinh Nguyen
 cnguyen@stata.com
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