diff --git a/notebooks/LPD/LPDChar_Darks_NBC.ipynb b/notebooks/LPD/LPDChar_Darks_NBC.ipynb
index 02baeea0ce221d25537cc75b8e44ddd0e4b719ed..d5ec25f0d349e1661c71e34df6f07f87cc2ea844 100644
--- a/notebooks/LPD/LPDChar_Darks_NBC.ipynb
+++ b/notebooks/LPD/LPDChar_Darks_NBC.ipynb
@@ -248,7 +248,11 @@
     "                cid_arr = cid_arr[:-drop_last_frames_parallelgain]\n",
     "    \n",
     "        tids_by_cell_pattern.setdefault(tuple(cid_arr), []).append(tid)\n",
-    "    \n",
+    "\n",
+    "    if not tids_by_cell_pattern:\n",
+    "        warning(\"No cell ID patterns were found.\")\n",
+    "        return None, None\n",
+    "\n",
     "    most_common, sel_tids = max(tids_by_cell_pattern.items(), key=lambda p: len(p[1]))\n",
     "    \n",
     "    if len(sel_tids) <= (0.5 * len(cell_ids.train_ids)):\n",
@@ -272,6 +276,8 @@
     "    run = RunDirectory(run_path, parallelize=False)\n",
     "    det_source = run[source_name.format(karabo_id, channel)]\n",
     "    cellid_pattern, train_ids = find_common_cell_pattern(det_source)\n",
+    "    if cellid_pattern is None:\n",
+    "        return None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None\n",
     "    data = det_source['image.data'][by_id[train_ids]]\n",
     "    cell_ids = det_source['image.cellId'][by_id[train_ids]]\n",
     "\n",
@@ -319,10 +325,6 @@
     "        if len(cellids_missing):\n",
     "            raise ValueError(f\"No frames left for cells {cellids_missing} \"\n",
     "                             \"after discarding frames with wrong gain stage\")\n",
-    "\n",
-    "    elif (gains != gg).any():\n",
-    "        raise Exception(f\"Adaptive gain run {run_path} contains pixels \"\n",
-    "                        f\"in gain state other than expected {gg}\")\n",
     "    \n",
     "    im = reorder_axes(im,\n",
     "        from_order=('frames', 'slow_scan', 'fast_scan'),\n",