Re: st: Re: Stata logfile in Dropbox

[Phil Schumm <pschumm@uchicago.edu>]

On Dec 26, 2013, at 9:13 PM, Michael Stewart <michaelstewartresearch@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was wondering if it is possible for Stata to start a log file in the dropbox.  Many time, when I start long jobs(which might take hours), It might be great if I can check output from my smart phone.With this in mind, I started a log file in my drop box account. My code is as follows

<snip>

> capture log close
> cd "C:/Users/mike/Dropbox/_stata_output"
> log using stata.log,replace

<snip>

> I always see the following output
> 
>      name:  <unnamed>
>       log:  C:\Users\mike\Dropbox\_stata_output\stata.log
>  log type:  text
> opened on:  26 Dec 2013, 20:43:39
> end of do-file


I'm not sure there's enough information here to say much.  IIUC, your do-file is longer than the three lines above, and when it is finished executing, the file stata.log on the *local* machine contains only the 5 lines you have shown here (i.e., the "end of do-file" marker appears without any of the output of the other commands in the do-file).  If so, I would start by turning off Dropbox syncing and rerunning the do-file -- if you see the same result, then it's possible that this has nothing to do with Dropbox.  If the problem disappears, then this would represent a pretty serious bug in Dropbox, since it's interfering with a file being written on the local machine.  Assuming you're up-to-date WRT the Dropbox client and OS, you might want to take this up with Dropbox support.

Keep in mind there are lots of free alternatives to Dropbox, such as Box, SkyDrive, Ubuntu One, etc.  Thus, if you're unable to get Dropbox working the way you want, you might try one of these other services.

If you were using OS X/Linux/Unix, you could log in to the machine (i.e., via SSH) from your smartphone using a mobile terminal app, and check your log file(s) that way.  On Windows, you might try one of the remote desktop applications (there are several) to access the machine from your phone.  Finally, perhaps the ideal way to do this type of thing is to run a log monitor, which would then let you monitor your log files via a secure web interface.  This would take a bit of work to set up and configure (it is typically used by sysadmins to monitor system logs), but there are several free, open-source alternatives out there if you wanted to put in the effort.


-- Phil


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