# EPUBCheck HTM-045: Encountered empty href

Source: https://epublab.com/epubcheck/htm-045/ (updated 2026-11-03)

EPUBCheck HTM-045 is a usage message: “Encountered empty href.” A link has an empty href, which points back to the same document.

- Official message (EPUBCheck 5.4.0): Encountered empty href.
- Default severity: Usage
- EPUBCheck's suggestion: Empty hrefs are valid self-references.  These should be validated to ensure that this is the desired intent.

## Typical causes

- Placeholder links that were never filled in.

## How to fix it

- Give the link a real target, or remove the a element if it should not be a link.

Message text and severity: EPUBCheck (W3C, BSD-3-Clause). Explanation: EPUBLab.