diff --git a/src/main/java/org/archive/format/text/charset/CharsetDetector.java b/src/main/java/org/archive/format/text/charset/CharsetDetector.java
index d391aac3..ae71b5fa 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/archive/format/text/charset/CharsetDetector.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/archive/format/text/charset/CharsetDetector.java
@@ -178,6 +178,9 @@ protected String getCharsetFromMeta(byte buffer[],int len) throws IOException {
 	}
 
 	private static String trimAttrValue(String value) {
+		if (value.isEmpty()) {
+			return value;
+		}
 		String result = value;
 		if (result.charAt(0) == '"') {
 			result = result.substring(1, result.length() - 1);