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 Guillaume Filteau posted on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 12:18 pm
Hi,

When there is an error in the analysis, Mplus often reports the number of the parameter that is causing the problem (ex: "PROBLEM INVOLVING PARAMETER 28"). How do I know which parameter corresponds to the number?

Best,
Guillaume
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 12:26 pm
When you get a message like that, TECH1 will be printed. Find the number in TECH1 and that will tell you what the parameter is.
 Guillaume Filteau posted on Saturday, April 25, 2009 - 10:07 am
Thanks for the tip!

By the way, I'm using TYPE = MIXTURE and I had to manually request TECH1.

Best,
Guillaume
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Monday, April 27, 2009 - 7:49 am
If you get a non-identification message, you should get TECH1 automatically if you are using the most recent version of Mplus. If you don't, you should send the output and your license number to support@statmodel.com.
 Eoin O'Connell posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 - 9:13 pm
I was using type = complex and had to manually request TECH1. However, even when I do, I cannot find the parameter numbers.

How should I remedy a model that is having trouble with a particular parameter?
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Monday, September 07, 2009 - 5:55 am
Go to the beginning of TECH1 and use the Find function to find the parameter number that you want. The remedy depends on the situation. If it is not clear to you, send your output and license number to support@statmodel.com.
 Jonathan Larson posted on Monday, March 24, 2014 - 11:57 am
Is it possible to determine if a parameter is identified without using MODINDICES?

We had been advised to use the following steps when encountering the following error:

THE STANDARD ERRORS OF THE MODEL PARAMETER ESTIMATES MAY NOT BE TRUSTWORTHY FOR SOME PARAMETERS DUE TO A NON-POSITIVE DEFINITE FIRST-ORDER DERIVATIVE PRODUCT MATRIX. THIS MAY BE DUE TO THE STARTING VALUES BUT MAY ALSO BE AN INDICATION OF MODEL NONIDENTIFICATION. THE CONDITION NUMBER IS 0.458D-12. PROBLEM INVOLVING PARAMETER 23.

1. Re-run the model with OUTPUT: SVALUES;
2. Use the SVALUES in the resulting output in a new run of the model.
a. Set the problem parameter to zero.
b. Set STARTS equal to zero.
c. Request OUTPUT: MODINDICES (ALL);
3. Check the modification index for the fixed parameter. If it is different from zero, the parameter is identified and the message can be ignored. If the modification index is equal to zero, the parameter is not identified and must be fixed to zero in subsequent runs.

Unfortunately, I just tried that for an LTA and got the following error:

*** WARNING in OUTPUT command
MODINDICES option is not available for TYPE=MIXTURE with more than one categorical latent variable. Request for MODINDICES is ignored.

Thank you!
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - 10:02 am
If you fix a parameter and the loglikelihood is the same as when the parameter is free, the parameter is not identified.
 Jonathan Larson posted on Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - 11:59 am
Thank you!
 Sarah Rosenbach posted on Friday, September 18, 2020 - 9:04 am
Hi,

I'm trying to understand the output of the TECH 1 specification alongside the RESULTS specification of the SAVEDATA command. What do the greek letters stand for in each subsection? I'm am hoping to find parameter estimates for each of my imputations (which I assume are the betas) but am not sure which are the standard errors.

Sarah
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Saturday, September 19, 2020 - 11:43 am
See Chapter 18 of the UG which you find on our website. See also Section 2 of the Technical appendix:

http://www.statmodel.com/download/techappen.pdf
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