Newest version of parallel is not working for me

[alvarocalderon]

Expected behavior and actual behavior

Steps to reproduce the problem

Hi!
I'm working in a Linux server using StataMP v. 14.2. First, I installed the command from SSC following this. I used parallel append, and it worked fine. After that, I uninstalled parallel using ssc uninstall and followed the steps to install the newest version. However, when I try to run the same code I used before, I only get:

Waiting for the clusters to finish...

I have waited for hours, without a response from Stata, and break did not work, so I killed the process.

The code I'm running is not fancy at all, is a simpler version of the parallel append example in the help file. I just defined a local macro with the files I'm interested, and runned

parallel append `files', do(my_dofile)

Where my_dofile is a simple do file that rename and keep some variables. As I said, it works with the version in SSC, but not with the newest version.
If I run:

parallel append `files', do(my_dofile) keep

I can see the do files, log files, and some directories created by the command (e.g. "__pllvewsxpgmd1_append"). The log files does not report any error. Inside the folders, the command created some dta files and the data is as I wanted. However, if I use "top" in the terminal, I can see that the command is not running different instances of Stata, as it does when using the SSC version of parallel.

As many other people use this package and does not have this problem, I guess the problem is mine. However, I don't have any idea what may be causing this. I have uninstalled and installed the package many times using ssc uninstall, and I get the same result.

Another issue (I don't know if it is related, but I get a similar response) is that I cannot include a path for the do file I'm using. I mean, I cannot run:

global path_to_dofile "/disk/homedirs/user/do_files"
parallel append `files', do($path_to_dofile/my_dofile)

It does not throw an error, and Stata does not stop running. Again, it says "Waiting for the clusters to finish...". The only difference with respect to the first problem is that the log files state that:

/disk/homedirs/user/do_files/my_dofile.do/ is not a valid command name

I have this response using the SSC version or the newest release.
Finally, setting timeout does not seem to help.

I was wondering if someone have any idea of what may be causing this and if you know a solution. Thank you!

System information

• Stata version and flavor (e.g. v14 MP): StataMP v14.2
• OS type and version (e.g. Windows 10): Scientific Linux release 6.9 (Carbon)
• Parallel version: last release and SSC version.

[bquistorff]

If you uninstall and install the SSC version does everything work fine? With the GitHub version does example1 from the help work (I'm trying a non-append example)?