diff --git a/plugins/input/geojson/geojson_datasource.cpp b/plugins/input/geojson/geojson_datasource.cpp
index ea0af9317..614621102 100644
--- a/plugins/input/geojson/geojson_datasource.cpp
+++ b/plugins/input/geojson/geojson_datasource.cpp
@@ -274,6 +274,7 @@ void geojson_datasource::initialise_index(Iterator start, Iterator end)
     try
     {
         mapnik::json::extract_bounding_boxes(itr, end, boxes);
+        if (itr != end || boxes.empty()) throw std::exception();
         // bulk insert initialise r-tree
         tree_ = std::make_unique<spatial_index_type>(boxes);
         // calculate total extent
@@ -365,9 +366,7 @@ void geojson_datasource::parse_geojson(Iterator start, Iterator end)
     {
         boxes_type boxes;
         mapnik::json::extract_bounding_boxes(itr, end, boxes);
-
-        if (itr != end) throw std::runtime_error("Malformed GeoJSON"); //ensure we've consumed all input
-
+        if (itr != end || boxes.empty()) throw std::exception(); //ensure we've consumed all input and we extracted at least one bbox;
         for (auto const& item : boxes)
         {
             auto const& geometry_index = std::get<1>(item);