get_embedding returns None Type Object

[Tilana]

When running classify on a larger sequence of texts, sometimes, the embedder returns a NoneType Object. This results in an error in line 235 in app/classifier.py:

        embeddings = self.embedder.get_embedding(seqs)
        embedding_shape = embeddings[0].shape
        all_embeddings = np.zeros(
            [len(embeddings), MAX_SEQ_LENGTH, embedding_shape[1]])
        all_input_mask = np.zeros([len(embeddings), MAX_SEQ_LENGTH])

        for i, matrix in enumerate(embeddings):
-->         all_embeddings[i][:len(matrix)] = matrix
            all_input_mask[i][:len(matrix)] = 1

It is possible to compute an embedding of the text, at which the NoneType object occurs, by feeding it into the get_embedding function separately or in a smaller list. However, the error is persistent at the specific text at which it fails.

For example:
seqs consists of a list of 200 texts, for one text (e.g. position i=10) the function get_embedding returns None;
If the order of the texts is changed the function will still fail at the same text (now e.g. position i=120).
However calling get_embedding at the failing text (e.g. get_embeddings(seqs[10]])) returns the correct embedding.

I built the following workaround, but I would like to understand why this happens and find a better solution:

        for i, matrix in enumerate(embeddings):
            try:
                all_embeddings[i][:len(matrix)] = matrix
                all_input_mask[i][:len(matrix)] = 1
            except:
                matrix = self.embedder.get_embedding([seqs[i]])[0]
                all_embeddings[i][:len(matrix)] = matrix
                all_input_mask[i][:len(matrix)] = 1