Index: src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/Memcache.java =================================================================== --- src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/Memcache.java (revision 666389) +++ src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/Memcache.java (working copy) @@ -582,7 +582,7 @@ HStoreKey key = es.getKey(); // if there's no column name, then compare rows and timestamps - if (origin.getColumn().length == 0) { + if (origin.getColumn() == null || origin.getColumn().length == 0) { // if the current and origin row don't match, then we can jump // out of the loop entirely. if (!Bytes.equals(key.getRow(), origin.getRow())) {