BA II Plus Error Messages: Errors 1 to 8 and How to Fix Them

A BA II Plus error message is a number from 1 to 8, and the number tells you which kind of mistake you made. Most people who search for one are looking at Error 5, and it is nearly always a sign problem. The other seven are just as predictable once you know what each one is checking.

Everything below follows the error table in Texas Instruments’ own guidebook. Where a fix is my advice rather than something the table says, I mark it as such.

The BA II Plus error messages at a glance

Message	Name	What triggered it	First thing to check
Error 1	Overflow	Division by zero, 1/x of zero, a result beyond ±9.9999999999999E99, or statistics on data where every X (or every Y) is the same	The number you divided by
Error 2	Invalid argument	LN of zero or a negative number, a square root of a negative, a negative number to a fractional power, P2 smaller than P1 in AMORT, or salvage greater than cost in DEPR	The last operation you pressed
Error 3	Too many pending operations	More than 15 levels of parentheses or more than 8 operations waiting	Break the expression into steps
Error 4	Out of range	An entry outside what its worksheet field allows	The field you just entered
Error 5	No solution exists	Same-sign cash flows when solving I/Y or N, or an IRR list with no sign change	The signs
Error 6	Invalid date	A date that does not exist, is keyed in the wrong format, or a redemption date on or before settlement	The date format
Error 7	Iteration limit exceeded	A search for I/Y, IRR or yield that ran out of steps	The cash-flow list
Error 8	Canceled iterative calculation	You pressed ON/OFF while the calculator was still searching	Run the calculation again

How do you clear an error message?

Press CE|C. Texas Instruments’ guidebook names that key as the one that clears an error message.

Clearing the message does not fix the cause, and it does not touch your registers. Check the entry that triggered the error, correct it, and compute again. If the calculator still behaves oddly after that, 2ND RESET ENTER restores everything to its default, but it also erases all ten memories and every worksheet, so treat it as the last step rather than the first. The settings and reset guide sets out which clear does what.

Error 5: why is there no solution?

Error 5 means the calculator looked for an answer and found that none exists. Texas Instruments lists three situations:

• Solving for I/Y when FV, N × PMT and PV all have the same sign. Cash you receive must be positive and cash you pay out must be negative.
• A logarithm input that is not greater than zero on the TVM, Cash Flow or Bond worksheets. This is how a solve for N fails when the signs are wrong, because N is found with a logarithm.
• IRR without at least one sign change in the cash-flow list.

Here is the first one in practice. You put $1,000 in and want to know the annual rate that grows it to $1,500 in five years, with P/Y set to 1. The natural thing to type is wrong:

1. 5
2. · N
3. · 1000
4. · PV
5. · 1500
6. · FV
7. · CPT
8. · I/Y

PV and FV are both positive, so there is no rate that turns one into the other.

You paid the $1,000 out, so it is negative. Change one sign and the same four entries work:

1. 5
2. · N
3. · 1000
4. · +/−
5. · PV
6. · 1500
7. · FV
8. · CPT
9. · I/Y

I/Y = 8.4472, a rate of 8.45% a year.

On IRR, the cause is simpler. A list of cash flows that is all negative, or all positive, has no rate at which the NPV can reach zero. Check that your outlay went in as CF0 and is negative, and that later inflows are positive. The IRR guide covers the cases where a list does change sign and still misbehaves.

Error 7: why did the search give up?

IRR, yield and the interest rate in TVM have no direct formula. The calculator hunts for them by repeated trial, and Error 7 means it hit its iteration limit before settling. TI lists three triggers:

• computing I/Y on the TVM worksheet for a very complex problem;
• computing IRR on a cash-flow list with multiple sign changes, or, on the Professional model, finding payback (PB/DPB) when the cash flows never pay back;
• computing YLD on the Bond worksheet for a very complex problem.

The difference from Error 5 matters. Error 5 means no answer exists. Error 7 means the calculator could not find one, which is not the same claim.

My advice, not TI’s: look for a typo in the cash-flow list first, because one wrong sign creates an extra sign change and turns a clean IRR into a hard one. If the list genuinely changes sign several times, the project can have several IRRs or none that means anything, and a better check is the NPV at a few discount rates. The NPV vs IRR guide explains why.

Error 1 and Error 2: the arithmetic errors

Both fire during ordinary calculation and are usually quick to find.

Error 1 (overflow) appears when:

• you divide by zero, or press 1/x while the display is 0;
• a result lies outside ±9.9999999999999E99;
• you run statistics on data where every X value, or every Y value, is the same. The spread of the data is then zero, so the calculation ends up dividing by zero.

Error 2 (invalid argument) appears when you ask a function for something it cannot do:

• LN of zero or of a negative number;
• a square root of a negative number;
• a negative number raised to a power that is not a whole number or the inverse of one, such as (−8)^0.5;
• x! where x is not a whole number from 0 to 69;
• on the Amortization worksheet, computing BAL, PRN or INT with P2 smaller than P1;
• on the Depreciation worksheet, a salvage value (SAL) greater than the cost (CST).

The last two catch people out because the input looks reasonable on its own. Enter P1 as 12 and P2 as 1 and you have asked for a range that runs backwards. Swap them.

Error 3: too many pending operations

The calculator holds a limited number of unfinished steps. Error 3 means you tried to use more than 15 levels of parentheses, or more than 8 pending operations. Real problems rarely need that many, so it usually appears when a long expression has been typed in one go.

Practical fix: stop part-way, press =, and store the partial result with STO and a digit. Recall it with RCL when you need it. That keeps each line short and avoids rounding an intermediate answer by hand.

Error 4: which value is out of range?

Error 4 means an entry fell outside the range its field accepts. These are the limits in TI’s table that I can state exactly:

Where	What is checked	Allowed
Amortization	P1 and P2	1 to 9,999
Cash Flow	The frequency, Fnn	0.5 to 9,999
Date	The computed date	January 1, 1980 to December 31, 2079
Format	DEC, the decimal places	0 to 9

The table also restricts other fields, and a value that is zero or out of bounds there raises the same error: P/Y and C/Y on the TVM worksheet, RV, CPN and PRI on the Bond worksheet, the declining-balance percent, LIF, YR, CST, SAL and M01 on the Depreciation worksheet, and C/Y on Interest Conversion. If Error 4 appears, it points at the field you just entered, so re-enter that value inside its range.

Error 6: invalid date

Dates on the Bond and Date worksheets are keyed as MM.DDYY in the default US format, or DD.MMYY if you have switched to European dates. Error 6 has three common causes:

• The date does not exist, such as January 32.
• The wrong format, such as MM.DDYYYY with a four-digit year.
• On the Bond worksheet, a redemption date on or before the settlement date.

The easiest trap is the format setting. Key 25.1226 meaning 25 December 2026 while the calculator is in US format and it reads 25 as a month, which does not exist. Open the format menu with 2ND FORMAT, move down twice to reach the date format, and check whether it reads US or Eur. The settings guide shows the full sequence. Remember too that a computed date outside 1980 to 2079 raises Error 4, not Error 6.

Error 8: the cancelled calculation

You get this one by interrupting. If you press ON/OFF while the calculator is still searching for I/Y, BAL or INT, IRR, YLD, or the DEP or RDV depreciation values, it stops and shows Error 8. Nothing is wrong with your entries. Press CE|C to clear the message, then compute again and leave the keys alone until the answer appears.

Which errors can each worksheet raise?

Seeing the errors by location narrows the search quickly.

Worksheet	Errors it can raise
Standard calculation	1, 2, 3
TVM	4 (P/Y, C/Y), 5, 7, 8
Cash Flow	4 (frequency), 5, 7, 8
Bond	4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Amortization	2 (P2 below P1), 4 (P1, P2), 8
Depreciation	2 (SAL above CST), 4, 8
Date	4 (result out of range), 6
Interest Conversion	4 (C/Y)
Statistics	1 (all X or all Y equal)

What this emulator does with errors

This site’s emulator follows TI’s numbering for the errors you are most likely to meet, with a plain sentence beside the number so you can see what it objected to.

• Reproduced: Error 1 (division by zero, 1/x of zero, overflow), Error 2 (LN or a root of an invalid number), Error 3 for exceeding 15 parentheses, Error 5 for a TVM solve with no solution or an IRR list with no sign change, and Error 7 when a search does not converge.
• Not reproduced: most Error 4 range checks, the 8-pending-operations limit, Error 6 for dates (an impossible bond date gets a plain-language message instead), and Error 8, because there is no ON/OFF key to interrupt a calculation.
• One difference to know: on the hardware, CE|C clears the error message. Here one press of CE|C resets the whole device, as on the rest of this site.

Use the emulator to learn what causes an error, then check the same keystrokes on your own device, since the hardware’s range checks are stricter. The table above comes from TI’s official guidebook; for the original wording see TI’s error messages reference, and TI’s support articles on Error 5, Error 6 and Error 7.

Next step

If an error keeps coming back, the cause is almost always a setting or a stale register rather than the problem itself. Work through the setup checklist in the complete guide, then try the same problem on the TVM calculator, which prints the signs and formula next to your answer so a wrong sign shows up immediately.