getColorValue() throws error instead of returning 0 and setValue() on color parameters sets to black

I'm iterating through the properties of a component in Premiere Pro using ExtendScript. In order to detect whether a property is a color value, I'm calling getColorValue() as suggested in the documentation.

According to the documentation, this method is supposed to return 0 if the property is not a color. However, in practice, it throws an "Unknown error" exception when used on non-color properties.

This makes it difficult to safely check if a property holds a color value, and it contradicts the behavior described in the documentation.

I can successfully get the value of a color property using getValue(), which returns a numeric value. However, when I try to reuse that same value in setValue(value, 1) on a color parameter, the color always becomes black — regardless of the original value.

It seems like getValue() on a color parameter gives back some encoded internal number, but setting it via setValue() doesn’t restore the original color correctly.

Has anyone found a reliable way to:

1. Read a color value using getValue() (not getColorValue())

2. Reapply that same color to another property using setValue()

Or is the only option to use getColorValue() and setColorValue() instead?