ValueError: Layer sequential_20 expects 1 inputs, but it received 2 input tensors

Question

I am trying to build a simple Autoencoder using the KMNIST dataset from Tensorflow and some sample code from a textbook I'm using, but I keep getting an error when I try to fit the model.

The error says ValueError: Layer sequential_20 expects 1 inputs, but it received 2 input tensors.

I'm really new to TensorFlow, and all my research on this error has baffled me since it seems to involve things not in my code. This thread wasn't helpful since I'm only using sequential layers.

Code in full:

import numpy as np
import tensorflow as tf
from tensorflow import keras
import tensorflow_datasets as tfds
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

#data = tfds.load(name = 'kmnist')

(img_train, label_train), (img_test, label_test) = tfds.as_numpy(tfds.load(
    name = 'kmnist',
    split=['train', 'test'],
    batch_size=-1,
    as_supervised=True,
))

img_train = img_train.squeeze()
img_test = img_test.squeeze()

## From Hands on Machine Learning Textbook, chapter 17

stacked_encoder = keras.models.Sequential([
    keras.layers.Flatten(input_shape=[28, 28]),
    keras.layers.Dense(100, activation="selu"),
    keras.layers.Dense(30, activation="selu"),
])

stacked_decoder = keras.models.Sequential([
    keras.layers.Dense(100, activation="selu", input_shape=[30]),
    keras.layers.Dense(28 * 28, activation="sigmoid"),
    keras.layers.Reshape([28, 28])
])

stacked_ae = keras.models.Sequential([stacked_encoder, stacked_decoder])
stacked_ae.compile(loss="binary_crossentropy",
                   optimizer=keras.optimizers.SGD(lr=1.5))

history = stacked_ae.fit(img_train, img_train, epochs=10,
                         validation_data=[img_test, img_test])

Answer 1

it helped me when I changed:
validation_data=[X_val, y_val] into validation_data=(X_val, y_val)
Actually still wonder why?

Answer 2

Use validation_data=(img_test, img_test) instead of validation_data=[img_test, img_test]

Here the example with encoder and decoder combined together:

stacked_ae = keras.models.Sequential([
    keras.layers.Flatten(input_shape=[28, 28]),
    keras.layers.Dense(100, activation="selu"),
    keras.layers.Dense(30, activation="selu"),
    keras.layers.Dense(100, activation="selu"),
    keras.layers.Dense(28 * 28, activation="sigmoid"),
    keras.layers.Reshape([28, 28])
])

stacked_ae.compile(loss="binary_crossentropy",
                   optimizer=keras.optimizers.SGD(lr=1.5))

history = stacked_ae.fit(img_train, img_train, epochs=10,
                         validation_data=(img_test, img_test))