[amelia] trouble getting Started loading data set

Hello, I'm having trouble getting started with Amelia. I'm using Ameliaview 1.7.4 The data I'm using comes from ANES, in Stata form. When I try to load my modified data set into Amelia (via the import Stata tab) all I get is a "failure in loading data" message. I then was successfully able to load into Amelia the unaltered data set from ANES. This data set had several administrative variables, that did not vary, so Amelia asked me to remove them. Is there a way to do this from within Amelia? As after I deleted the offending variables outside of Amelia, I again was faced with the "failure in loading data message" So I guess I have a number of questions. Is there any reason my stata data set won't load into Amelia? Linked to this does Amelia only work on unaltered data sets? Finally, is there anyway to delete variables from within Amelia? many thanks John Megson