Dear list members! By carefully surfing through the error messages and spm-files I was able to track the wrong entries in my batch script. However, considering the fact that other people might come along such problems a short note how I found it: SPM came up with the following messages: In C:\Programme\spm99\spm_hrf.m at line 40 In C:\Programme\spm99\spm_get_bf.m at line 164 In C:\Programme\spm99\spm_get_bf.m at line 301 In C:\Programme\spm99\spm_fMRI_design.m at line 231 In C:\Programme\spm99\spm_fmri_spm_ui.m at line 206 In C:\Programme\spm99\spm_bch.m at line 156 By changing line 231 of spm_fMRI_design.m in order to get all information of input and output variables of this line, it was easy to find the wrong entries in the script. Ok, careful reading of the script itself could had solved it too - but very often you are blind sided or focusing on the wrong detail (I had focused on the event type and the hrf def in the script ...). Hopefully, I have not stolen too much time of anybody with the last two mails. Best wishes, Lukas