diff --git a/clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/clients/consumer/internals/Fetcher.java b/clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/clients/consumer/internals/Fetcher.java
index 3d02bfdffb29a..7e55d468d3b66 100644
--- a/clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/clients/consumer/internals/Fetcher.java
+++ b/clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/clients/consumer/internals/Fetcher.java
@@ -512,8 +512,8 @@ private void handleFetchResponse(ClientResponse resp, FetchRequest request) {
                         this.subscriptions.fetched(tp, record.offset() + 1);
                         this.records.add(new PartitionRecords<>(fetchOffset, tp, parsed));
                         this.sensors.recordsFetchLag.record(partition.highWatermark - record.offset());
-                    } else if (buffer.capacity() >= this.fetchSize) {
-                        // we did not read a single message from a max fetchable buffer
+                    } else if (buffer.limit() > 0) {
+                        // we did not read a single message from a non-empty buffer
                         // because that message's size is larger than fetch size, in this case
                         // record this exception
                         this.recordTooLargePartitions.put(tp, fetchOffset);