diff --git a/export.py b/export.py
index 7fb4366..d909c9f 100644
--- a/export.py
+++ b/export.py
@@ -280,7 +280,12 @@ def load_checkpoint(checkpoint):
 
 def load_hf_model(model_path):
 
-    from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM
+    try:
+        from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM
+    except ImportError:
+        print("Error: transformers package is required to load huggingface models")
+        print("Please run `pip install transformers` to install it")
+        return None
 
     # load HF model
     hf_model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(model_path)
@@ -357,5 +362,8 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
     else:
         parser.error("Input model missing: --checkpoint or --hf is required")
 
+    if model is None:
+        parser.error("Can't load input model!")
+
     # export
     model_export(model, args.filepath, args.version)
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index b4054e1..7187a73 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -5,4 +5,3 @@ sentencepiece==0.1.99
 torch==2.0.1
 tqdm==4.64.1
 wandb==0.15.5
-transformers==4.31.0