diff --git a/hermetic_build/library_generation/owlbot/templates/java_library/.github/scripts/update_generation_config.sh b/hermetic_build/library_generation/owlbot/templates/java_library/.github/scripts/update_generation_config.sh
index 91434688cc..fff56bf5dd 100644
--- a/hermetic_build/library_generation/owlbot/templates/java_library/.github/scripts/update_generation_config.sh
+++ b/hermetic_build/library_generation/owlbot/templates/java_library/.github/scripts/update_generation_config.sh
@@ -15,8 +15,15 @@ set -e
 function get_latest_released_version() {
     local group_id=$1
     local artifact_id=$2
-    latest=$(curl -s "https://search.maven.org/solrsearch/select?q=g:${group_id}+AND+a:${artifact_id}&core=gav&rows=500&wt=json" | jq -r '.response.docs[] | select(.v | test("^[0-9]+(\\.[0-9]+)*$")) | .v' | sort -V | tail -n 1)
-    echo "${latest}"
+    json_content=$(curl -s "https://search.maven.org/solrsearch/select?q=g:${group_id}+AND+a:${artifact_id}&core=gav&rows=500&wt=json")
+    latest=$(jq -r '.response.docs[] | select(.v | test("^[0-9]+(\\.[0-9]+)*$")) | .v' <<< "${json_content}" | sort -V | tail -n 1)
+    if [[ -z "${latest}" ]]; then
+        echo "The latest version of ${group_id}:${artifact_id} is empty."
+        echo "The returned json from maven.org is invalid: ${json_content}"
+        exit 1
+    else
+        echo "${latest}"
+    fi
 }
 
 # Update a key to a new value in the generation config.