diff --git a/lstm/lstmtrainer.h b/lstm/lstmtrainer.h
index 41ea32d68c..65df18afd6 100644
--- a/lstm/lstmtrainer.h
+++ b/lstm/lstmtrainer.h
@@ -301,6 +301,7 @@ class LSTMTrainer : public LSTMRecognizer {
   // language model. trainer is the model that is restored.
   bool ReadTrainingDump(const GenericVector<char>& data,
                         LSTMTrainer* trainer) const {
+    if (data.empty()) return false;
     return ReadSizedTrainingDump(&data[0], data.size(), trainer);
   }
   bool ReadSizedTrainingDump(const char* data, int size,