DPP4: "Target file does not exist"

[Kumba43]

Hi, per the topic title, in Canon Digital Photo Professional 4, when I have one or more images selected in a folder on my filesystem and I click on the "Tools" menu and then any number of the items there, such as "Start Compositing tool", "Start HDR compositing tool", "Start HDR PQ compositing tool", "Start Dual Pixel RAW Optimizer", etc, I get an error dialog popping up that simply says "Target file does not exist".  I have searched online and cannot find any explanations as to what this error is referring to or means.  AI has no clue and just starts hallucinating what it thinks are potential solutions, so that's a dead end.

All of my images were shot on a Canon EOS R6, all in RAW format (file extension is *.CR3), and my OS is Windows 10.  I even tried moving some of the files to an NTFS volume, as my photo scratch volume runs ReFS, but that didn't change the outcome.

After some poking around, I did get the "Start HDR compositing tool" item to work, but only in a folder where I have non-HDR images stored, so it is kind of pointless there.  It will not work in a folder on any images containing the "HDR" tag (I shot several using HDR PQ mode, so I have image triplets of +2, 0, and -2 exposure in this folder).  I've tried adding the toolbar buttons for these as well, but no dice.

Has anyone figured out how to get these features to work?  E.g., what are the necessary preconditions?  I feel like this is a failure on Canon's part to actually do QA checks on their own software during development.  This should be an easy bug to catch, unless the developers primarily work on non-Windows based development systems and don't bother to test Windows releases?  If it is not a bug, then wtf am I missing, because it is incredibly non-obvious, whatever it is.

Thanks!

[jrhoffman75]

Did you try the non-PQ version of the tool?

[Kumba43]

If you mean "HDR compositing tool" in DPP, then yes, and it gives the same error if I have an HDR image selected.  If I a normal, SDR image selected, it opens up a dialog for selecting up to three images to composite.

[johnrmoyer]

https://cam.start.canon/en/S002/manual/html/UG-05_Synthetic_0060.html 

Creating PQ-Compliant HDR Images

You can create PQ-compliant HDR images with less detail lost in highlights and shadows from three images that meet the following requirements.

• Compatible cameras: EOS R1, EOS R3, EOS R5 Mark II, EOS R6 Mark III, EOS R6 Mark II, EOS R6 V, EOS R7, EOS R8, EOS R10, EOS R50, EOS R50 V, PowerShot V1, or EOS C50
• Image format: HEIF images, RAW images captured with [HDR PQ] set to [Enable], or RAW images with [HDR PQ settings] set to [On] in DPP

• The HEVC codec must be activated () before images created this way can be saved in HEIF format.

Caution

• The best source images to use for an HDR image are images of the same scene that have low, normal, and high exposure.
• Not available for HDR PQ images without exposure-related information such as shutter speed, aperture value, or ISO speed.

• Resulting HDR images have the following characteristics.

  • No image information is added.
  • Some recipe settings are not applied, such as ALO, brightness or gamma adjustment, or Picture Styles.

Note

• You can also save the resulting HDR image as a JPEG or TIFF.