diff --git a/com.unity.robotics.ros-tcp-connector/Runtime/MessageGeneration/MessageDeserializer.cs b/com.unity.robotics.ros-tcp-connector/Runtime/MessageGeneration/MessageDeserializer.cs
index a1335c85..9c7c30a0 100644
--- a/com.unity.robotics.ros-tcp-connector/Runtime/MessageGeneration/MessageDeserializer.cs
+++ b/com.unity.robotics.ros-tcp-connector/Runtime/MessageGeneration/MessageDeserializer.cs
@@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ public void Read(out string value)
             value = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(data, offset, length);
 #else
             // ROS2 strings have a null byte at the end
-            value = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(data, offset, length - 1);
+            value = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(data, offset, Math.Max(0, length - 1));
 #endif
             offset += length;
         }