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What does the error r(?) mean when I try to connect to the Internet from within Stata?

Title   Common error messages you receive when trying to connect to the Internet from within Stata.
Author Kevin Crow, StataCorp

r(2) or r(610)

  1. If your computer is on a network then, more than likely your computer is behind a firewall. To get Internet access from within Stata, you will have to contact your network administrator and get the network proxy/firewall address and port. Once you have the proxy information, open Stata, and in your Stata menu bar click “Prefs” and then “General Preferences”. Under the “Internet Prefs” tab, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy” and fill in the appropriate IP and port settings. If you have to enter a username and password to get Internet access, check the box labeled "Use HTTP Proxy Authorization" and fill in your username and password.
  2. Your Internet connection has timed out. This can happen when

    1. the connection between your computer and the host is slow, or
    2. the connection between your computer and the host was lost.
  3. In the case of (b), wait awhile (say 5 minutes) and try again (sometimes pieces of the Internet can break for up to a day, but that is rare). In the case of (a), you can reset the limits for what constitutes "timed out". There are two numbers to set.

    timeout1: the time to establish the initial connection

    By default, Stata waits 30 seconds before declaring a timeout. You can change the limit:
            . set timeout1 #seconds
    
    You might try doubling the usual limit and specify 60. #seconds must be between 1 and 32,000.

    timeout2: the time to retrieve data from an open connection

    By default, Stata waits 180 seconds (3 minutes) before declaring a timeout. To change the limit, type
    	. set timeout2 #seconds
    
    You might try doubling the usual limit and specify 360. #seconds must be between 1 and 32,000. When you reset timeout1 and timeout2, Stata will remember the new settings between sessions. If you want to change the limits back to the defaults, type
    	. set timeout1 30 
    	. set timeout2 180
    

r(601)

  1. Check the permissions of the Stata installation directory to which you are downloading into, and make sure you have write permissions. If you do not know which directory Stata is installed into, open Stata, and type sysdir in your Stata Command Window. The first path, STATA, is the path to the Stata install directory.
  2. If your computer is on a network, then more than likely your computer is behind a firewall. To get Internet access from within Stata, you will have to contact your network administrator and get the network proxy address and port. Once you have the proxy information, open Stata, and in your Stata menu bar click “Prefs” and then “General Preferences”. Under the “Internet Prefs” tab, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy” and fill in the appropriate IP and port settings. If you have to enter a username and password to get Internet access, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy Authorization” and fill in your username and password.

r(603)

  1. Check the permissions of the Stata installation directory to which you are downloading into, and make sure you have write permissions. If you do not know which directory Stata is installed into, open Stata and type sysdir in your Stata Command window. The first path, STATA, is the path to the Stata installation directory.

r(608)

  1. There are files (or directories) in your Stata installation directory that are marked as read-only by the operating system. You will need to change the permissions on these files.

r(612)

  1. The Stata webserver connection might be lost when you update your ado-files in Stata because there are many ado-files. From a computer that has an Internet connection, point your web browser to the URL below to download the ado-file updates. You will also find step-by-step instructions on how to install the downloaded files on the web page.

r(631)

  1. If your computer is on a network, then more than likely your computer is behind a firewall. To get Internet access from within Stata, you will have to contact your network administrator and get the network proxy address and port. Once you have the proxy information, open Stata, and in your Stata menu bar click “Prefs” and then “General Preferences”. Under the “Internet Prefs” tab, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy” and fill in the appropriate IP and port settings. If you have to enter a username and password to get Internet access, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy Authorization” and fill in your username and password.

r(660)

  1. The error “proxy host not found” indicates that the proxy server is incorrectly specified in the Internet Preferences for Stata. Contact your network administrator to make sure you have the current proxy information for your Internet connection.

r(663)

  1. Make sure you entered the correct proxy information in Stata’s Internet Preferences. In your Stata menu bar, click “Prefs” and then “General Preferences”. Under the “Internet Prefs” tab, double-check the IP and port settings.

r(672)

  1. If your computer is on a network, then more than likely your computer is behind a firewall. To get Internet access from within Stata, you will have to contact your network administrator and get the network proxy address and port. Once you have the proxy information, open Stata, and in your Stata menu bar click “Prefs” and then “General Preferences”. Under the “Internet Prefs” tab, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy” and fill in the appropriate IP and port settings. If you have to enter a username and password to get Internet access, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy Authorization” and fill in your username and password.
  2. If your proxy information is entered into Stata correctly and you are still having troubles updating Stata, make sure that your firewall is caching the Stata website correctly. Sometimes at large corporate sites there are firewalls and caching proxy servers that can interfere with some of the download operations of Stata. The error 672 in Stata is “server refused to send file”, which can come if the proxy server is caching information locally and not directly forwarding the packets on to our web server. Ask your network administrators if they can trace whether your update requests from Stata are making it to our web server or if they are stopping at your firewall.

r(677)

  1. This error usually occurs when you have a firewall program on your computer that is blocking Stata from connecting to the web. To allow Stata access to the web, you can either disable the firewall program while using Stata to connect to the web or configure the firewall program to allow Stata access to the web. Norton’s Internet Securities, Zone Alarm, McAfee Personal Firewall Plus, etc., are all examples of personal firewall programs.

r(678)

  1. This error usually occurs when you have a firewall program on your computer that is blocking Stata from connecting to the web. To allow Stata access to the web, you can either disable the firewall program while using Stata to connect to the web or configure the firewall program to allow Stata access to the web. Norton’s Internet Securities, Zone Alarm, McAfee Personal Firewall Plus, etc., are all examples of personal firewall programs.
  2. If your computer is on a network, then more than likely your computer is behind a firewall. To get Internet access from within Stata, you will have to contact your network administrator and get the network proxy address and port. Once you have the proxy information, open Stata, and in your Stata menu bar click “Prefs” and then “General Preferences”. Under the “Internet Prefs” tab, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy” and fill in the appropriate IP and port settings. If you have to enter a username and password to get Internet access, check the box labeled “Use HTTP Proxy Authorization” and fill in your username and password.

r(691)

  1. Check the permissions of the Stata installation directory to which you are downloading into and make sure you have write permissions. If you do not know which directory Stata is installed into, open Stata and type sysdir in your Stata Command Window. The first path, STATA, is the path to the Stata installation directory.
  2. A filesystem error occurred during input or output. This typically indicates a hardware or operating system failure, although it is possible that the disk was merely full and this state was misinterpreted as an I/O error.