diff --git a/routers/web/repo/view.go b/routers/web/repo/view.go
index 45d5a650ba..384681caf6 100644
--- a/routers/web/repo/view.go
+++ b/routers/web/repo/view.go
@@ -840,8 +840,30 @@ func renderCode(ctx *context.Context) {
 	ctx.Data["PageIsViewCode"] = true
 
 	if ctx.Repo.Repository.IsEmpty {
-		ctx.HTML(http.StatusOK, tplRepoEMPTY)
-		return
+		reallyEmpty, err := ctx.Repo.GitRepo.IsEmpty()
+		if err != nil {
+			ctx.ServerError("GitRepo.IsEmpty", err)
+			return
+		}
+		if reallyEmpty {
+			ctx.HTML(http.StatusOK, tplRepoEMPTY)
+			return
+		}
+		// the repo is not really empty, so we should update the modal in database
+		// such problem may be caused by:
+		// 1) an error occurs during pushing/receiving.  2) the user replaces an empty git repo manually
+		// and even more: the IsEmpty flag is deeply broken and should be removed with the UI changed to manage to cope with empty repos.
+		// it's possible for a repository to be non-empty by that flag but still 500
+		// because there are no branches - only tags -or the default branch is non-extant as it has been 0-pushed.
+		ctx.Repo.Repository.IsEmpty = false
+		if err = repo_model.UpdateRepositoryCols(ctx.Repo.Repository, "is_empty"); err != nil {
+			ctx.ServerError("UpdateRepositoryCols", err)
+			return
+		}
+		if err = models.UpdateRepoSize(db.DefaultContext, ctx.Repo.Repository); err != nil {
+			ctx.ServerError("UpdateRepoSize", err)
+			return
+		}
 	}
 
 	title := ctx.Repo.Repository.Owner.Name + "/" + ctx.Repo.Repository.Name