diff --git a/scripts/builtin/apply_pipeline.dml b/scripts/builtin/apply_pipeline.dml
index 7c268206ea8..b9f660a30d2 100644
--- a/scripts/builtin/apply_pipeline.dml
+++ b/scripts/builtin/apply_pipeline.dml
@@ -73,9 +73,14 @@ s_apply_pipeline = function(Frame[Unknown] testData, Frame[Unknown] metaData = a
   
   # # # if mask has 1s then there are categorical features
   M = as.frame(exState[2])
-  index = vectorToCsv(mask)
-  jspecR = "{ids:true, recode:["+index+"]}"
-  eXtest = transformapply(target=Xtest, spec=jspecR, meta=M);
+  if(sum(mask) > 0)
+  {
+    index = vectorToCsv(mask)
+    jspecR = "{ids:true, recode:["+index+"]}"
+    eXtest = transformapply(target=Xtest, spec=jspecR, meta=M);
+  }
+  else 
+    eXtest = as.matrix(Xtest)
   metaList["applyFunc"] = applyFunc
 
   no_of_param = as.scalar(hp[1, 1]) + 1
diff --git a/scripts/builtin/topk_cleaning.dml b/scripts/builtin/topk_cleaning.dml
index 47902b54317..f2353e99196 100644
--- a/scripts/builtin/topk_cleaning.dml
+++ b/scripts/builtin/topk_cleaning.dml
@@ -223,6 +223,7 @@ return(Matrix[Double] eXtrain, Matrix[Double] eXtest, Frame[Unknown] X_meta)
   else {
     eXtrain = as.matrix(Xtrain)
     eXtest = as.matrix(Xtest)
+    X_meta = as.frame('NULL')
   }
 }