Hi,
If your address state is empty it is because the default country is unpublished.
The "country" custom field have a default value, but if the stored default value is an unpublished country, it would display the first published country.
The state is linked to the default country so by default it will load the states of the default country but... If this default country is unpublished, it would not load the state of the first published country.
It is something that we want to improve in the future.
For the moment, you just have to edit your "country custom field" and re-save it.
By saving it, you would update the default value with the first published country and all will work right after that.
Regards,
Jerome - Obsidev.com
HikaMarket & HikaSerial developer / HikaShop core dev team.
Also helping the HikaShop support team when having some time or couldn't sleep.
By the way, do not send me private message, use the "contact us" form instead.