diff --git a/src/danog/MadelineProto/MTProtoTools/UpdateHandler.php b/src/danog/MadelineProto/MTProtoTools/UpdateHandler.php
index 5012a5b8..91ba0578 100644
--- a/src/danog/MadelineProto/MTProtoTools/UpdateHandler.php
+++ b/src/danog/MadelineProto/MTProtoTools/UpdateHandler.php
@@ -495,6 +495,7 @@ trait UpdateHandler
     {
         $payload = json_encode($this->utf8ize($update));
         \danog\MadelineProto\Logger::log([$update, $payload, json_last_error()]);
+        if ($payload === '') { \danog\MadelineProto\Logger::log(['EMPTY UPDATE']); return false; }
         $ch = curl_init();
         curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
         curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $this->hook_url);