diff --git a/common/persistence/cassandra/cassandraClusterMetadata.go b/common/persistence/cassandra/cassandraClusterMetadata.go
index cb1e0565c3b..58fc52b08b5 100644
--- a/common/persistence/cassandra/cassandraClusterMetadata.go
+++ b/common/persistence/cassandra/cassandraClusterMetadata.go
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ func (m *cassandraClusterMetadata) GetClusterMetadata() (*p.InternalGetClusterMe
 		return nil, convertCommonErrors("GetClusterMetadata", err)
 	}
 	// TODO(vitarb): immutable metadata is needed for backward compatibility only, remove after 1.1 release.
-	if clusterMetadata == nil {
+	if len(clusterMetadata) == 0 {
 		clusterMetadata = immutableMetadata
 		encoding = immutableMetadataEncoding
 		// Version can only be 0 for legacy records that have NULL version in the DB.
diff --git a/common/persistence/sql/sqlClusterMetadataManager.go b/common/persistence/sql/sqlClusterMetadataManager.go
index 23c51048eea..1e1cb25fca7 100644
--- a/common/persistence/sql/sqlClusterMetadataManager.go
+++ b/common/persistence/sql/sqlClusterMetadataManager.go
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ func (s *sqlClusterMetadataManager) GetClusterMetadata() (*p.InternalGetClusterM
 	}
 
 	// TODO(vitarb): immutable metadata is needed for backward compatibility only, remove after 1.1 release.
-	if row.Data == nil {
+	if len(row.Data) == 0 {
 		row.Data = row.ImmutableData
 		row.DataEncoding = row.ImmutableDataEncoding
 	}