[dmach47]

I'm trying out Digital Camera Utility 5 that came with my K-1ii and I'm having a weird issue. When I try to print (by clicking on the printer icon), I get the following error:
"The parameter is incorrect."
Once I click the "OK", I get the print screen. However, if I click on the "Page Setup" button, I get the same error. Again, if I click "OK" I get the Page setup screen, but if I hit the "OK" button there, I get the same error and it won't let me exit the screen, unless I click "Cancel".

What's going on? I've not seen this error with any other program and it sure is a useless error message (akin to "something is wrong").

[biz-engineer]

The error message means what it says. If some input parameters are null (empty) or if such parameters inputs do not fit the proper format for the software to run properly, the internal software error checking detects that the values of input parameters are incorrect and reports a error. You need to fill the empty fields in page setup with some dummy data, and then the error messages will disappear. Does it makes sense to you now?

[Kobayashi.K]

I get this too, and there is nothing I can change in File | Page Setup to make the error disappear (a lot of settings are grayed out).

With File | Print I get the same error, with OK on the error message it opens the Print window on tab 'Print photo', and without changing anything there, with OK on this page it finally prints.

So for me it's totally unclear where this error comes from.

p.s. Using DCU 5.9.3

[biz-engineer]

I get this too, and there is nothing I can change in File | Page Setup to make the error disappear (a lot of settings are grayed out).

You change enable those parameters so they can be changed and aren't greyed out, then you disable. It works .

---------- Post added 22-12-21 at 08:16 ----------

So for me it's totally unclear where this error comes from.

Please read my post above.

The error message means what it says. If some input parameters are null (empty) or if such parameters inputs do not fit the proper format for the software to run properly, the internal software error checking detects that the values of input parameters are incorrect and reports a error. You need to fill the empty fields in page setup with some dummy data, and then the error messages will disappear. Does it makes sense to you now?

That's a good explanation, but actually, the error message is, itself, erroneous, but it's a mistake commonly made; what's really in error is an argument, not a parameter, but that's a software engineer's distinction. (An "argument" to a function is an actual value; a "parameter" can be thought of as a variable that can assume a range of values to be supplied in the form of arguments.)
On the other hand, one wonders why users should have to know stuff like that; it is, shall we say, unfortunate design. If the error message is not communicative, then I'd say the software is not really usable, and therefore defective.
"In the old days", we used to deal with error messages that looked sort of like this: "IEF54324 - Probable user error, please meditate and resubmit", but then there was a massive book in which every possible error message was listed in order of its identifier with a complete description of what it meant and what was necessary to correct it.

[Kobayashi.K]

Ok, by opening File | Settings I now have set all the parameters for the header and the footer by selecting 'Align Left' with Position to enable them (font, text, size, page number, No. of pages), press Apply and then OK, and the error disappears. When I set the position of the footer and header back to 'Do not print' (parameters grayed out), the error still stays away. When you forget to set a single one of these parameters you get an error, but it stays away indefinitely once you have set them all. So, @biz-engineer, you are correct, thank you.

I agree though with @dlhawes this error message is erroneous and sloppy work of the developer.

[biz-engineer]

That's a good explanation, but actually, the error message is, itself, erroneous, but it's a mistake commonly made; what's really in error is an argument, not a parameter, but that's a software engineer's distinction.

The arguments are not initialized to a valid value. I hope it's the proper wording. Anyway I found a solution that works for me. The rest is debating about software quality and software testing, and that's beyond what I can control.

[Kobayashi.K]

The arguments are not initialized to a valid value. I hope it's the proper wording. Anyway I found a solution that works for me. The rest is debating about software quality and software testing, and that's beyond what I can control.

Well, from a developer point if view, the solution is simple. A flag must be set in the software to indicate if parameters are used or not (grayed out), and only showing an appropriate error message to the user if a parameter is not set AND enabled.
Or even better, if you want to minimize messages to the user you can give these parameters neutral default values. Problem solved.

[dmach47]

Please read my post above.

I got rid of the "The parameter is incorrect" that was stopping me from changing the print settings by filling in the font and putting some text "duh" into the box. Then I set it to "Don't print",. However, I still get that error when I click the print button. Since I'm able to print, I'll just ignore it.

Not a very useful error message. It would be nice if it said something like, "The following parameters are in error...".

But thanks for the information.

[k0og]

You're on the right track...

Go to each of the three tabs in the Print dialog (Print Index, Print Photo, and Print Bracketing), and carefully go through each setting parameter and make sure that each "Font" field has a valid system font selected from the pull-down font list (non-blank). I just tested this on my system, and that got rid of all error messages in both the settings and print dialogs.

-Joe-

I got rid of the "The parameter is incorrect" that was stopping me from changing the print settings by filling in the font and putting some text "duh" into the box. Then I set it to "Don't print",. However, I still get that error when I click the print button. Since I'm able to print, I'll just ignore it.

Not a very useful error message. It would be nice if it said something like, "The following parameters are in error...".

But thanks for the information.

What I thought when I first saw that message when I encountered it in version 6-point-something was that someone's a dumb programmer. First off, if it really is a problem with a parameter as opposed to an argument, then that's a mis-match between modules in the system, a programmer error. Secondly, if he can't figure out a better way to manage error conditions, well, I don't have anything to say about that. (I was once told, "If you don't have anything nice to say, just shut up.")

"IEF90163: Probable user error, please meditate and resubmit."

"IEK01128: Input error, system going down."

(Parodies of IBM mainframe messages. They had a two inch thick book of "Messages and Codes" that were at least as cryptic.)