Unpacking behavior for iterator-like inputs: A common pattern is to pass a tf.data.Dataset, generator, or tf.keras.utils.Sequence to the x argument of fit, which will in fact yield not only features (x) but optionally targets (y) and sample weights. Keras requires that the output of such iterator-likes be unambiguous. The iterator should return a tuple of length 1, 2, or 3, where the optional second and third elements will be used for y and sample_weight respectively. Any other type provided will be wrapped in a length one tuple, effectively treating everything as 'x'. When yielding dicts, they should still adhere to the top-level tuple structure. e.g. ({"x0": x0, "x1": x1}, y). Keras will not attempt to separate features, targets, and weights from the keys of a single dict. A notable unsupported data type is the namedtuple. The reason is that it behaves like both an ordered datatype (tuple) and a mapping datatype (dict). So given a namedtuple of the form: namedtuple("example_tuple", ["y", "x"]) it is ambiguous whether to reverse the order of the elements when interpreting the value. Even worse is a tuple of the form: namedtuple("other_tuple", ["x", "y", "z"]) where it is unclear if the tuple was intended to be unpacked into x, y, and sample_weight or passed through as a single element to x. As a result the data processing code will simply raise a ValueError if it encounters a namedtuple. (Along with instructions to remedy the issue.)