diff --git a/daemon-common/node.py b/daemon-common/node.py
index 5b6cdcc8..0c421ed1 100644
--- a/daemon-common/node.py
+++ b/daemon-common/node.py
@@ -158,9 +158,9 @@ def getNodeInformation(zkhandler, node_name):
         zkhandler, node_name, node_health_plugins
     )
 
-    if _node_network_stats is not None:
+    try:
         node_network_stats = json.loads(_node_network_stats)
-    else:
+    except Exception:
         node_network_stats = dict()
 
     # Construct a data structure to represent the data