diff --git a/public/gentrap/src/main/resources/nl/lumc/sasc/biopet/pipelines/gentrap/scripts/plot_heatmap.R b/public/gentrap/src/main/resources/nl/lumc/sasc/biopet/pipelines/gentrap/scripts/plot_heatmap.R
index ec3e98da470c22812f7a3d21fb921674e1fd6e85..2f6acb3b7ee6139cf8953024af51978917287931 100755
--- a/public/gentrap/src/main/resources/nl/lumc/sasc/biopet/pipelines/gentrap/scripts/plot_heatmap.R
+++ b/public/gentrap/src/main/resources/nl/lumc/sasc/biopet/pipelines/gentrap/scripts/plot_heatmap.R
@@ -136,7 +136,13 @@ plotPlaceholder <- function(out.name=OUTPUT.PLOT, text.display="Not enough data
 }
 
 
-parsed <- prepTable(INPUT.PATH)
+parsed <- tryCatch(
+    prepTable(INPUT.PATH),
+    error=function (e) {
+        plotPlaceholder(text.display="Error occured during table parsing")
+        q(status=0)
+    })
+
 if (nrow(parsed) > 0) {
   cors <- cor(parsed, method="spearman")
   tryCatch(plotHeatmap(cors), error=function (e) plotPlaceholder(text.display="Error occured during plotting"))