diff --git a/sweepai/api.py b/sweepai/api.py
index c63b972aea..3cf8c9a580 100644
--- a/sweepai/api.py
+++ b/sweepai/api.py
@@ -809,9 +809,6 @@ def handle_event(request_dict, event):
                 except Exception as e:
                     logger.exception(f"Failed to add config to top repos: {e}")
             case "pull_request", "edited":
-                # apparently body is sometimes None
-                if not request_dict.get('body', ''):
-                    request_dict['body'] = ''
                 request = PREdited(**request_dict)
 
                 if (
diff --git a/sweepai/core/vector_db.py b/sweepai/core/vector_db.py
index 189937ad13..e45ef07027 100644
--- a/sweepai/core/vector_db.py
+++ b/sweepai/core/vector_db.py
@@ -190,7 +190,7 @@ def openai_call_embedding(batch: list[str], input_type: str="document"):
             raise e
     except openai.BadRequestError as e:
         # In the future we can better handle this by averaging the embeddings of the split batch
-        if "This model's maximum context length" in str(e):
+        if "maximum context length" in str(e):
             logger.warning(f"Token count exceeded for batch: {max([tiktoken_client.count(text) for text in batch])} truncating down to 8192 tokens.")
             batch = [tiktoken_client.truncate_string(text) for text in batch]
             return openai_call_embedding(batch, input_type)
diff --git a/sweepai/utils/github_utils.py b/sweepai/utils/github_utils.py
index d61f464c30..1b34535a09 100644
--- a/sweepai/utils/github_utils.py
+++ b/sweepai/utils/github_utils.py
@@ -405,6 +405,9 @@ def __post_init__(self):
         self.commit_hash = self.repo.get_commits()[0].sha
         self.git_repo = self.clone()
         self.branch = self.branch or SweepConfig.get_branch(self.repo)
+        # branch may have been deleted or not exist
+        if self.branch not in self.git_repo.heads:
+            raise Exception(f"Branch '{self.branch}' does not exist.")
         self.git_repo.git.checkout(self.branch)
 
     def __del__(self):
diff --git a/sweepai/web/events.py b/sweepai/web/events.py
index 7aebdccb91..2157de96c1 100644
--- a/sweepai/web/events.py
+++ b/sweepai/web/events.py
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ class User(BaseModel):
 
         html_url: str
         title: str
-        body: str
+        body: str | None
         number: int
 
         user: User