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 |                        NONMEM ERROR MESSAGES                    |
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 MEANING: Error messages
 CONTEXT: NONMEM output

 This feature is not fully documented.  The interested user may be able  L
 to  obtain  more  information  by studying the appropriate sections of  L
 NONMEM code.                                                            L

 USAGE:                                                                  L

 DISCUSSION:                                                             L
 This is not a complete list.  It includes  only  commonly  seen  error  L
 messages.                                                               L

 Section I.  Errors in the control stream                                L
 FILE RECORD MISSING                                                     L
      There is something wrong with the NONMEM control file.   Probably  L
      it  is  an  NM-TRAN control file (starting with $PROBLEM), rather  L
      than the FCON file produced by NM-TRAN.                            L
 TOT. NO. OF OBSERVATIONS IN INDIVIDUAL REC NO.    1 (IN INDIVIDUAL REC  L
 ORDERING) EXCEEDS  50                                                   L
  SEE INSTALLATION GUIDE                                                 L
      There are too many observation records in some individual record.  L
      To  increase the limit beyond 50, NONMEM must be recompiled.  see  L
      Guide III, Section 2.7.                                            L

 INITIAL ESTIMATE OF OMEGA HAS A NONZERO BLOCK WHICH IS NUMERICALLY NOT  L
 POSITIVE DEFINITE                                                       L
      Possible cause: initial estimates of the variance and  covariance  L
      terms in a block of OMEGA are not appropriate.  Try other initial  L
      estimates.  (Hint: it helps of the covariance estimates are small  L
      relative to the variance estimates.)                               L

 USER CCONTR ROUTINE NOT USED, BUT THERE ARE NO EPSILONS, AND ETAS  ARE  L
 TO BE ESTIMATED                                                         L
      This can happen when POSTHOC etas are requested, but the data are  L
      single-subject  data.   The  user  may  have included the POSTHOC  L
      option in error.                                                   L

 UNABLE  TO  OBTAIN  A  SATISFACTORY  INITIAL  ESTIMATE  OF   VARIANCE-  L
 COVARIANCE  COMPONENTS  BLOCKS IN BLOCK SET 2 OF OMEGA ARE NUMERICALLY  L
 NOT POSITIVE DEFINITE                                                   L
      This message is from the Initial Estimates Step.   It  identifies  L
      certain parameters whose initial estimates could not be obtained.  L

 Part II.  Error in NONMEM tasks                                         L

 NUMBER OF CALLS TO SIMETA EXCEEDS NO. OF DATA RECORDS  FOR  INDIVIDUAL  L
 1 (IN INDIVIDUAL RECORD ORDERING)                                       L
      During the Simulation Step,  an  excessive  number  of  calls  to  L
      SIMETA  have  occurred.   It  may  be  that  the  users's PRED is  L
      attempting to obtain ETA from a truncated distribution  but,  due  L
      to some error, is rejecting all or virtually all values.  (Possi-  L
      bly, the NEW option was omitted from the random source.)           L

 Some messages are preceded by lines such as the following  that  iden-  L
 tify the NONMEM routine that has detected the error:                    L
 PROGRAM TERMINATED BY OBJ                                               L
 PROGRAM TERMINATED BY OBJ, ERROR IN CELS                                L
 PROGRAM TERMINATED BY OBJ, ERROR IN ELS                                 L
 PROGRAM TERMINATED BY PRRES, ERROR IN ELS                               L
 PROGRAM TERMINATED BY FNLETA                                            L
      OBJ computes the objective function;                               L
      ELS computes Extended Least-Squares contribution to the objective  L
      function from the data from a single individual ("L1") record.     L
      CELS computes the conditional contribution to the  ELS  objective  L
      function;                                                          L
      PRRES prints final results.                                        L
      FNLETA computes subject-specific (posthoc) eta values.             L

 WITH INDIVIDUAL    1 (IN INDIVIDUAL RECORD ORDERING)                    L
      A line such as this identifies the record.                         L

 Here are some commonly seen error messages.                             L
 INTRAINDIVIDUAL VARIANCE OF DATA FROM OBS RECORD  1 ESTIMATED TO BE 0   L
 VAR-COV OF DATA FROM INDIVIDUAL RECORD ESTIMATED TO BE  SINGULAR        L
      A possible cause is the use of a  proportional   intra-individual  L
      error  model  while  some predicted  values  for  actual observa-  L
      tions are zero or close to zero.  (For example, if the first dose  L
      is  an  infusion  and  there is  a  "base- line"  observation  at  L
      the start of the infusion, the predicted level will be zero.)      L

 MINIMIZATION TERMINATED DUE TO PROXIMITY OF NEXT ITERATION EST.  TO  A  L
 VALUE AT WHICH THE OBJ. FUNC. IS INFINITE                               L
      NONMEM Theta-recovery has failed.                                  L

 OCCURS DURING SEARCH FOR ETA AT A NONZERO VALUE OF ETA                  L
      An error occurred while NONMEM was  obtaining  conditional  esti-  L
      mates of eta.                                                      L

REFERENCES: Guide I Section G
REFERENCES: Guide V Section 13


  
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