diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index d4d14700d..79e17f0d9 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning 2.0](https://semver.org/spec/v2
 - Improved error messages with process output for 7z extraction errors
 - Fixed missing tkinter dependency for OneTrainer on Windows
 - Fixed auto-update on macOS not starting new version from an issue in starting .app bundles with arguments
+- Fixed [#436](https://github.com/LykosAI/StabilityMatrix/issues/436) - Crash on invalid json files during checkpoint indexing
 
 ## v2.8.0
 ### Added
diff --git a/StabilityMatrix.Core/Services/SettingsManager.cs b/StabilityMatrix.Core/Services/SettingsManager.cs
index 4959227be..b7441cf42 100644
--- a/StabilityMatrix.Core/Services/SettingsManager.cs
+++ b/StabilityMatrix.Core/Services/SettingsManager.cs
@@ -425,11 +425,22 @@ public void IndexCheckpoints()
         foreach (var jsonFile in connectedModelJsons)
         {
             var json = File.ReadAllText(jsonFile);
-            var connectedModel = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<ConnectedModelInfo>(json);
 
-            if (connectedModel?.Hashes.BLAKE3 != null)
+            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(json))
+                continue;
+
+            try
+            {
+                var connectedModel = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<ConnectedModelInfo>(json);
+
+                if (connectedModel?.Hashes.BLAKE3 != null)
+                {
+                    modelHashes.Add(connectedModel.Hashes.BLAKE3);
+                }
+            }
+            catch (Exception e)
             {
-                modelHashes.Add(connectedModel.Hashes.BLAKE3);
+                Logger.Warn(e, "Failed to parse connected model info from {JsonFile}", jsonFile);
             }
         }