keras-team/keras · error · ValueError

The `weights` argument should be either `None` (random initi

Error message

The `weights` argument should be either `None` (random initialization), 'imagenet' (pre-training on ImageNet), or the path to the weights file to be loaded.

What it means

Error "The `weights` argument should be either `None` (random initialization), 'imagenet' (pre-training on ImageNet), or the path to the weights file to be loaded." thrown in keras-team/keras.

Source

Thrown at keras/src/applications/xception.py:96

                last convolutional block, and thus
                the output of the model will be a 2D tensor.
            - `max` means that global max pooling will
                be applied.
        classes: optional number of classes to classify images
            into, only to be specified if `include_top` is `True`, and
            if no `weights` argument is specified. Defaults to `1000`.
        classifier_activation: A `str` or callable. The activation function to
            use on the "top" layer. Ignored unless `include_top=True`. Set
            `classifier_activation=None` to return the logits of the "top"
            layer.  When loading pretrained weights, `classifier_activation` can
            only be `None` or `"softmax"`.
        name: The name of the model (string).

    Returns:
        A model instance.
    """
    if not (weights in {"imagenet", None} or file_utils.exists(weights)):
        raise ValueError(
            "The `weights` argument should be either "
            "`None` (random initialization), 'imagenet' "
            "(pre-training on ImageNet), "
            "or the path to the weights file to be loaded."
        )

    if weights == "imagenet" and include_top and classes != 1000:
        raise ValueError(
            "If using `weights='imagenet'` with `include_top=True`, "
            "`classes` should be 1000.  "
            f"Received classes={classes}"
        )

    # Determine proper input shape
    input_shape = imagenet_utils.obtain_input_shape(
        input_shape,
        default_size=299,
        min_size=71,

View on GitHub (pinned to 7a34a03db6)

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at keras/src/applications/xception.py:96 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of keras-team/keras@7a34a03db6 (2026-08-25). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ca3028a71c5fb15a. Report an issue: GitHub.