diff --git a/backend/open_webui/retrieval/utils.py b/backend/open_webui/retrieval/utils.py
index 133016d85c..66a7fa2ddf 100644
--- a/backend/open_webui/retrieval/utils.py
+++ b/backend/open_webui/retrieval/utils.py
@@ -220,7 +220,11 @@ def query_doc_with_hybrid_search(
                 zip(distances, metadatas, documents), key=lambda x: x[0], reverse=True
             )
             sorted_items = sorted_items[:k]
-            distances, documents, metadatas = map(list, zip(*sorted_items))
+
+            if sorted_items:
+                distances, documents, metadatas = map(list, zip(*sorted_items))
+            else:
+                distances, documents, metadatas = [], [], []
 
         result = {
             "distances": [distances],