diff --git a/python/llm/src/bigdl/llm/transformers/model.py b/python/llm/src/bigdl/llm/transformers/model.py
index 8b6d6b2f..9c71b045 100644
--- a/python/llm/src/bigdl/llm/transformers/model.py
+++ b/python/llm/src/bigdl/llm/transformers/model.py
@@ -376,7 +376,8 @@ class _BaseAutoModelClass:
 
         # enable tie_word_embeddings for MPT
         # refer to https://huggingface.co/mosaicml/mpt-7b-chat/blob/main/modeling_mpt.py#L232
-        if model.config.architectures[0] != 'MPTForCausalLM':
+        if model.config.architectures is None \
+           or model.config.architectures[0] != 'MPTForCausalLM':
             model.config.update({"tie_word_embeddings": False})
 
         # add save_low_bit to pretrained model dynamically