diff --git a/src/caosadvancedtools/scifolder/withreadme.py b/src/caosadvancedtools/scifolder/withreadme.py
index c36fb736c399724fe62e5f95dfa08b4bfe1a0f81..8a63e1f6d90ed4e78d01f76393cc72982cdc79d4 100644
--- a/src/caosadvancedtools/scifolder/withreadme.py
+++ b/src/caosadvancedtools/scifolder/withreadme.py
@@ -261,10 +261,17 @@ class WithREADME(object):
 
             for item in self.header[field.key]:
                 if INCLUDE.key in item:
-                    included.extend(
-                        get_entity_ids_from_include_file(
-                            os.path.dirname(self.crawled_path),
-                            item[INCLUDE.key]))
+                    try:
+                        included.extend(
+                            get_entity_ids_from_include_file(
+                                os.path.dirname(self.crawled_path),
+                                item[INCLUDE.key]))
+                    except ValueError:
+                        al = logging.getLogger("caosadvancedtools")
+                        al.warning("The include file cannot be read. Please "
+                                   "make sure, it contains an 'ID' column."
+                                   " The file is ignored."
+                                   "\n{}".format(item[INCLUDE.key]))
 
             assure_object_is_in_list(included,
                                      record,