diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 1318c85bb..8abac9684 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ with open("./requirements.txt", "r") as requirements_file:
     # don't include peft yet until we check the int4
     # need to manually install peft for now...
     reqs = [r.strip() for r in requirements_file.readlines() if "peft" not in r]
-    reqs = [r for r in reqs if r[0] != "#"]
+    reqs = [r for r in reqs if r and r[0] != "#"]
     for r in reqs:
         install_requires.append(r)