Dear Allin,
To see the problem, use the attached data file
and run the chunk of code below

<hansl>
#####################################################
###### run 2 chancks separately

open very_bad_data.gdt
# let we decide that series y
# is staionary  if kpss p-value
# is greater than 0.01
# this means that
# arima 2 1; y
# is by no means apriory misspecified

n = $nvars - 1
scalar number_of_non_convergence = 0

loop i= 1..n -q
nami = sprintf("var%d",i)
kpss -1 @nami
catch arima 2 1; @nami
err = $error
if err
   number_of_non_convergence +=1
endif
endloop
printf "\nThe total number of variable in the datafile = %d\n", n
printf "\nThe number of non-convergent arma(2,1) models = %d\n", n

##########################################################
##########################################################

test1 = randint(1,81)
testnami = sprintf("var%d",test1)
arima 2 1; @testnami --verbose
eval mean(@testnami)
arima 2 1; @testnami --x-12-arima

### what to compare:
# 1) final values of arma parameters
# with --x-12-arima estimates
# 2) compare initial constant with
# (i) final value of constant
# (ii) mean of the series
# (iii) with --x-12 constant estimate

# it seems there are serious problems
# with initial value for constant
<hansl>

Oleh