diff --git a/.unreleased/pr_6113 b/.unreleased/pr_6113
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..80ba723f5f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.unreleased/pr_6113
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Fixes: #6113 Fix planner distributed table count
+
+Thanks: @symbx for reporting a crash when selecting from empty hypertables
diff --git a/src/planner/planner.c b/src/planner/planner.c
index 69d918515d0..fe0c1a26c8a 100644
--- a/src/planner/planner.c
+++ b/src/planner/planner.c
@@ -388,19 +388,18 @@ preprocess_query(Node *node, PreprocessQueryContext *context)
 							query->rowMarks == NIL && rte->inh)
 							rte_mark_for_expansion(rte);
 
+						if (hypertable_is_distributed(ht))
+						{
+							context->num_distributed_tables++;
+						}
+
 						if (TS_HYPERTABLE_HAS_COMPRESSION_TABLE(ht))
 						{
 							int compr_htid = ht->fd.compressed_hypertable_id;
 
 							/* Also warm the cache with the compressed
 							 * companion hypertable */
-							ht = ts_hypertable_cache_get_entry_by_id(hcache, compr_htid);
-							Assert(ht != NULL);
-						}
-
-						if (hypertable_is_distributed(ht))
-						{
-							context->num_distributed_tables++;
+							ts_hypertable_cache_get_entry_by_id(hcache, compr_htid);
 						}
 					}
 					else