diff --git a/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/protobuf/ProtobufUtil.java b/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/protobuf/ProtobufUtil.java
index 623acd5..d9ce64e 100644
--- a/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/protobuf/ProtobufUtil.java
+++ b/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/protobuf/ProtobufUtil.java
@@ -176,6 +176,7 @@ import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.VersionInfo;
 import org.apache.hadoop.io.Text;
 import org.apache.hadoop.ipc.RemoteException;
 import org.apache.hadoop.security.token.Token;
+import org.mortbay.log.Log;

 import com.google.common.collect.ArrayListMultimap;
 import com.google.common.collect.ListMultimap;
@@ -2596,7 +2597,12 @@ public final class ProtobufUtil {
         kv.getFamilyOffset(), kv.getFamilyLength()));
     kvbuilder.setQualifier(ByteStringer.wrap(kv.getQualifierArray(),
         kv.getQualifierOffset(), kv.getQualifierLength()));
-    kvbuilder.setCellType(CellProtos.CellType.valueOf(kv.getTypeByte()));
+    try {
+      kvbuilder.setCellType(CellProtos.CellType.valueOf(kv.getTypeByte()));
+    } catch (NullPointerException npe) {
+      Log.warn("Encountered NPE for Cell" + kv);
+      throw npe;
+    }
     kvbuilder.setTimestamp(kv.getTimestamp());
     kvbuilder.setValue(ByteStringer.wrap(kv.getValueArray(), kv.getValueOffset(),
         kv.getValueLength()));