diff --git a/lnwire/lnwire_test.go b/lnwire/lnwire_test.go
index f1311c62..8a1e82f6 100644
--- a/lnwire/lnwire_test.go
+++ b/lnwire/lnwire_test.go
@@ -668,11 +668,9 @@ func TestLightningWireProtocol(t *testing.T) {
 
 			numChanIDs := rand.Int31n(5000)
 
-			req.ShortChanIDs = make([]ShortChannelID, numChanIDs)
 			for i := int32(0); i < numChanIDs; i++ {
-				req.ShortChanIDs[i] = NewShortChanIDFromInt(
-					uint64(r.Int63()),
-				)
+				req.ShortChanIDs = append(req.ShortChanIDs,
+					NewShortChanIDFromInt(uint64(r.Int63())))
 			}
 
 			v[0] = reflect.ValueOf(req)
diff --git a/lnwire/query_short_chan_ids.go b/lnwire/query_short_chan_ids.go
index fd959c43..401aa118 100644
--- a/lnwire/query_short_chan_ids.go
+++ b/lnwire/query_short_chan_ids.go
@@ -146,10 +146,13 @@ func decodeShortChanIDs(r io.Reader) (ShortChanIDEncoding, []ShortChannelID, err
 		// compute the number of bytes encoded based on the size of the
 		// query body.
 		numShortChanIDs := len(queryBody) / 8
-		shortChanIDs := make([]ShortChannelID, numShortChanIDs)
+		if numShortChanIDs == 0 {
+			return encodingType, nil, nil
+		}
 
 		// Finally, we'll read out the exact number of short channel
 		// ID's to conclude our parsing.
+		shortChanIDs := make([]ShortChannelID, numShortChanIDs)
 		bodyReader := bytes.NewReader(queryBody)
 		for i := 0; i < numShortChanIDs; i++ {
 			if err := readElements(bodyReader, &shortChanIDs[i]); err != nil {