[dpaul]

Sorry still confused - perhaps I'm just not reading carefully

Are you saying that that INPA works fine, no error messages and that error messages are only associated with NCSExpert?

There are two additional levels of selection after starting NCSexpert, loading a profile, pressing F1 (start or VIN/ZCS/FA) then F3 (chassis selection or ZCS/FA from ECU). Are you saying that the error message appears after selecting F3 or after selecting "E89" or after selecting "CAS"? If the latter, have you tried selecting "NFRM"?

Let's see the error log: after you get the error in NCS, click ok, then select 'view' on the top menu and click on ERROR.LOG

EDIT:
Generally good thing to do is clear the contents of the MAN file (FSW_PSW.MAN).
What versions of NCSExpert and EDIABAS are you running? From a BMW Standard tools 2.12 installation? What NCSExpert profile are you loading?