diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 20c88bf4280..9f9faa7b73f 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 * [BUGFIX] Update port spec for GCS docker-compose example [#869](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/869) (@zalegrala)
 * [BUGFIX] Fix "magic number" errors and other block mishandling when an ingester forcefully shuts down [#937](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/issues/937) (@mdisibio)
 * [BUGFIX] Fix compactor memory leak [#806](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/806) (@mdisibio)
+* [BUGFIX] Fix an issue with WAL replay of zero-length search data when search is disabled. [#968](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/968) (@annanay25)
 * [ENHANCEMENT] Added "query blocks" cli option. [#876](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/876) (@joe-elliott)
 * [ENHANCEMENT] Added traceid to `trace too large message`. [#888](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/888) (@mritunjaysharma394)
 * [ENHANCEMENT] Add support to tempo workloads to `overrides` from single configmap in microservice mode. [#896](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/896) (@kavirajk)
diff --git a/modules/distributor/search_data_test.go b/modules/distributor/search_data_test.go
index ebb2927ad11..58a9c57c27f 100644
--- a/modules/distributor/search_data_test.go
+++ b/modules/distributor/search_data_test.go
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ import (
 )
 
 func TestExtractSearchData(t *testing.T) {
-	traceIDA := []byte{0x0A, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04, 0x05, 0x06, 0x07, 0x08, 0x09, 0x0A, 0x0B, 0x0C, 0x0D, 0x0E, 0x0F}
+	traceIDA := []byte{0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04, 0x05, 0x06, 0x07, 0x08, 0x09, 0x0A, 0x0B, 0x0C, 0x0D, 0x0E, 0x0F}
 
 	testCases := []struct {
 		name       string
diff --git a/tempodb/search/backend_search_block_test.go b/tempodb/search/backend_search_block_test.go
index 5322c6b5336..2756c45ab60 100644
--- a/tempodb/search/backend_search_block_test.go
+++ b/tempodb/search/backend_search_block_test.go
@@ -81,6 +81,84 @@ func TestBackendSearchBlockSearch(t *testing.T) {
 	require.Equal(t, traceCount, int(sr.TracesInspected()))
 }
 
+func TestBackendSearchBlockDedupesWAL(t *testing.T) {
+	traceCount := 1_000
+
+	testCases := []struct {
+		name                 string
+		searchDataGenerator  func(traceID []byte, i int) [][]byte
+		searchTags           map[string]string
+		expectedLenResults   int
+		expectedLenInspected int
+	}{
+		{
+			name:                 "distinct traces",
+			searchDataGenerator:  genSearchData,
+			searchTags:           map[string]string{"key10": "value_A_10", "key20": "value_B_20"},
+			expectedLenResults:   1,
+			expectedLenInspected: 1,
+		},
+		{
+			name: "empty traces",
+			searchDataGenerator: func(traceID []byte, i int) [][]byte {
+				return [][]byte{}
+			},
+			searchTags:           map[string]string{"key10": "value_A_10"},
+			expectedLenResults:   0,
+			expectedLenInspected: 0,
+		},
+	}
+
+	for _, tc := range testCases {
+		t.Run(tc.name, func(t *testing.T) {
+			f, err := os.OpenFile(path.Join(t.TempDir(), "searchdata"), os.O_CREATE|os.O_RDWR, 0644)
+			require.NoError(t, err)
+
+			b1, err := NewStreamingSearchBlockForFile(f)
+			require.NoError(t, err)
+
+			id := []byte{0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04, 0x05, 0x06, 0x07, 0x08, 0x09, 0x0A, 0x0B, 0x0C, 0x0D, 0x0E, 0x0F}
+			for i := 0; i < traceCount; i++ {
+				require.NoError(t, b1.Append(context.Background(), id, tc.searchDataGenerator(id, i)))
+			}
+
+			l, err := local.NewBackend(&local.Config{
+				Path: t.TempDir(),
+			})
+			require.NoError(t, err)
+
+			blockID := uuid.New()
+			tenantID := "fake"
+			err = NewBackendSearchBlock(b1, l, blockID, tenantID, backend.EncNone, 0)
+			require.NoError(t, err)
+
+			b2 := OpenBackendSearchBlock(l, blockID, tenantID)
+
+			p := NewSearchPipeline(&tempopb.SearchRequest{
+				Tags: tc.searchTags,
+			})
+
+			sr := NewResults()
+
+			sr.StartWorker()
+			go func() {
+				defer sr.FinishWorker()
+				err := b2.Search(context.TODO(), p, sr)
+				require.NoError(t, err)
+			}()
+			sr.AllWorkersStarted()
+
+			var results []*tempopb.TraceSearchMetadata
+			for r := range sr.Results() {
+				results = append(results, r)
+			}
+			require.Equal(t, tc.expectedLenResults, len(results))
+			require.Equal(t, tc.expectedLenInspected, int(sr.TracesInspected()))
+		})
+	}
+
+}
+
 func BenchmarkBackendSearchBlockSearch(b *testing.B) {
 	pageSizesMB := []float32{0.5, 1, 2}
 
diff --git a/tempodb/search/data_combiner.go b/tempodb/search/data_combiner.go
index 41387ed0b9d..5b51846837b 100644
--- a/tempodb/search/data_combiner.go
+++ b/tempodb/search/data_combiner.go
@@ -25,6 +25,10 @@ func (*DataCombiner) Combine(_ string, searchData ...[]byte) ([]byte, bool) {
 	data := tempofb.SearchEntryMutable{}
 	kv := &tempofb.KeyValues{} // buffer
 	for _, sb := range searchData {
+		// we append zero-length entries to the WAL even when search is disabled. skipping to prevent unmarshalling and panik :)
+		if len(sb) == 0 {
+			continue
+		}
 		sd := tempofb.SearchEntryFromBytes(sb)
 		for i, ii := 0, sd.TagsLength(); i < ii; i++ {
 			sd.Tags(kv, i)