diff --git a/fs/btrfs/send.c b/fs/btrfs/send.c
index 355a458cba1a..63a6152be04b 100644
--- a/fs/btrfs/send.c
+++ b/fs/btrfs/send.c
@@ -1469,7 +1469,21 @@ static int read_symlink(struct btrfs_root *root,
 	ret = btrfs_search_slot(NULL, root, &key, path, 0, 0);
 	if (ret < 0)
 		goto out;
-	BUG_ON(ret);
+	if (ret) {
+		/*
+		 * An empty symlink inode. Can happen in rare error paths when
+		 * creating a symlink (transaction committed before the inode
+		 * eviction handler removed the symlink inode items and a crash
+		 * happened in between or the subvol was snapshoted in between).
+		 * Print an informative message to dmesg/syslog so that the user
+		 * can delete the symlink.
+		 */
+		btrfs_err(root->fs_info,
+			  "Found empty symlink inode %llu at root %llu",
+			  ino, root->root_key.objectid);
+		ret = -EIO;
+		goto out;
+	}
 
 	ei = btrfs_item_ptr(path->nodes[0], path->slots[0],
 			struct btrfs_file_extent_item);