diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 44f49289a..b54c6e8d6 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ liger-kernel==0.5.2
 packaging==23.2
 
 peft==0.14.0
-transformers==4.48.3
+transformers==4.49.0
 tokenizers>=0.21.0
 accelerate==1.3.0
 datasets==3.2.0
diff --git a/src/axolotl/monkeypatch/relora.py b/src/axolotl/monkeypatch/relora.py
index 3fda84b92..1dd758ec5 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/monkeypatch/relora.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/monkeypatch/relora.py
@@ -127,6 +127,8 @@ class ReLoRACallback(TrainerCallback):
         optimizer: torch.optim.Optimizer,
         **_kwargs,
     ):
+        if not optimizer:
+            optimizer = state.optimizer
         if state.global_step > 0 and state.global_step % self.relora_steps == 0:
             checkpoint_folder = os.path.join(
                 args.output_dir,