diff --git a/src/gen/lib/baseobj.py b/src/gen/lib/baseobj.py
index 4f7931008..b9daa9762 100644
--- a/src/gen/lib/baseobj.py
+++ b/src/gen/lib/baseobj.py
@@ -73,6 +73,13 @@ class BaseObject:
         # Run through its own items
         patern_upper = pattern.upper()
         for item in self.get_text_data_list():
+            # Many items kave length=0; skip those. However this might be caused by some
+            # unknown other error.
+            if len(item) == 0:
+                continue
+            # Some items are strings, which will fail in item.upper(), and some items are unicode.
+            # Convert all items to unicode and the item.upper().find(patern_upper) will work OK.
+            item = unicode(item)
             if not item:
                 continue
             if case_sensitive: