diff --git a/java/src/main/java/org/micromanager/remote/HeadlessLauncher.java b/java/src/main/java/org/micromanager/remote/HeadlessLauncher.java
index 0d0c857f..46b908bd 100644
--- a/java/src/main/java/org/micromanager/remote/HeadlessLauncher.java
+++ b/java/src/main/java/org/micromanager/remote/HeadlessLauncher.java
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
       int bufferSizeMB = Integer.parseInt(args[2]);
       String coreLogPath = args[3];
 
-      if (configFilePath != null && configFilePath.isEmpty()) {
+      if (configFilePath != null && configFilePath.length() != 0) {
          core.loadSystemConfiguration(configFilePath);
       }
       core.setCircularBufferMemoryFootprint(bufferSizeMB);
diff --git a/pycromanager/headless.py b/pycromanager/headless.py
index 37646670..12548e08 100644
--- a/pycromanager/headless.py
+++ b/pycromanager/headless.py
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@ def start_headless(
                     # "-XX:MaxDirectMemorySize=1000",
                     "org.micromanager.remote.HeadlessLauncher",
                     str(port),
-                    '' if config_file is None else config_file,
+                    config_file,
                     str(buffer_size_mb),
                     core_log_path,
                 ], cwd=mm_app_path, stdout=subprocess.PIPE