diff --git a/swh/indexer/metadata_dictionary.py b/swh/indexer/metadata_dictionary.py
--- a/swh/indexer/metadata_dictionary.py
+++ b/swh/indexer/metadata_dictionary.py
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 import json
 import logging
 import email.parser
+import xml.parsers.expat
 
 import xmltodict
 
@@ -258,7 +259,11 @@
     mapping = CROSSWALK_TABLE['Java (Maven)']
 
     def translate(self, content):
-        d = xmltodict.parse(content).get('project')
+        try:
+            d = xmltodict.parse(content).get('project') or {}
+        except xml.parsers.expat.ExpatError:
+            self.log.warning('Error parsing XML of %r', content)
+            return None
         metadata = self.translate_dict(d, normalize=False)
         metadata[SCHEMA_URI+'codeRepository'] = self.parse_repositories(d)
         metadata[SCHEMA_URI+'license'] = self.parse_licenses(d)
diff --git a/swh/indexer/tests/test_metadata.py b/swh/indexer/tests/test_metadata.py
--- a/swh/indexer/tests/test_metadata.py
+++ b/swh/indexer/tests/test_metadata.py
@@ -548,6 +548,16 @@
                 'http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/mycompany/app/my-app',
         })
 
+    def test_compute_metadata_maven_empty(self):
+        raw_content = b"""
+        <project>
+        </project>"""
+        result = MAPPINGS["MavenMapping"].translate(raw_content)
+        self.assertEqual(result, {
+            '@context': 'https://doi.org/10.5063/schema/codemeta-2.0',
+            'type': 'SoftwareSourceCode',
+        })
+
     def test_compute_metadata_maven_almost_empty(self):
         raw_content = b"""
         <project>
@@ -559,6 +569,16 @@
             'type': 'SoftwareSourceCode',
         })
 
+    def test_compute_metadata_maven_invalid_xml(self):
+        raw_content = b"""
+        <project>"""
+        result = MAPPINGS["MavenMapping"].translate(raw_content)
+        self.assertEqual(result, None)
+        raw_content = b"""
+        """
+        result = MAPPINGS["MavenMapping"].translate(raw_content)
+        self.assertEqual(result, None)
+
     def test_compute_metadata_maven_minimal(self):
         raw_content = b"""
         <project>