diff --git a/pychunkedgraph/ingest/cli.py b/pychunkedgraph/ingest/cli.py
index 66dd36e97..7061cd0f7 100644
--- a/pychunkedgraph/ingest/cli.py
+++ b/pychunkedgraph/ingest/cli.py
@@ -157,6 +157,10 @@ def ingest_chunk(queue: str, chunk_info):
 def ingest_chunk_local(graph_id: str, chunk_info, n_threads: int):
     """Manually ingest a chunk on a local machine."""
     from .create.abstract_layers import add_layer
+    from .cluster import _create_atomic_chunk
 
-    cg = ChunkedGraph(graph_id=graph_id)
-    add_layer(cg, chunk_info[0], chunk_info[1:], n_threads=n_threads)
+    if chunk_info[0] == 2:
+        _create_atomic_chunk(chunk_info[1:])
+    else:
+        cg = ChunkedGraph(graph_id=graph_id)
+        add_layer(cg, chunk_info[0], chunk_info[1:], n_threads=n_threads)
diff --git a/pychunkedgraph/io/edges.py b/pychunkedgraph/io/edges.py
index df0538db7..d9f72d9fe 100644
--- a/pychunkedgraph/io/edges.py
+++ b/pychunkedgraph/io/edges.py
@@ -37,13 +37,15 @@ def deserialize(edges_message: EdgesMsg) -> Tuple[np.ndarray, np.ndarray, np.nda
 
 
 def _parse_edges(compressed: List[bytes]) -> List[Dict]:
+    result = []
+    if(len(compressed) == 0):
+        return result
     zdc = zstd.ZstdDecompressor()
     try:
         n_threads = int(os.environ.get("ZSTD_THREADS", 1))
     except ValueError:
         n_threads = 1
     decompressed = zdc.multi_decompress_to_buffer(compressed, threads=n_threads)
-    result = []
     for content in decompressed:
         chunk_edges = ChunkEdgesMsg()
         chunk_edges.ParseFromString(memoryview(content))