diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index d1bff4ff..b2e4f9b3 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ Improvements
 Bug fixes
 ^^^^^^^^^
 * GH248 Fix an issue causing a ValueError to be raised when using `dask_index_on` on non-integer columns
+* GH255 Fix an issue causing the python interpreter to shut down when reading an
+  empty file (see also https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-8142)
 
 Version 3.8.0 (2020-03-12)
 ==========================
diff --git a/docs/guide/partitioning.rst b/docs/guide/partitioning.rst
index 4819f655..9b9967e3 100644
--- a/docs/guide/partitioning.rst
+++ b/docs/guide/partitioning.rst
@@ -136,6 +136,7 @@ structure would be different if the columns are in a different order.
 .. note:: Every partition must have data for every table. An empty dataframe in this
           context is also considered as data.
 
+.. _partitioning_dask:
 
 Force partitioning by shuffling using Dask
 ------------------------------------------
@@ -169,6 +170,8 @@ number of physical input partitions.
     ).compute()
     sorted(dm.partitions.keys())
 
+.. _shuffling:
+
 Shuffling
 *********
 
diff --git a/kartothek/io/dask/dataframe.py b/kartothek/io/dask/dataframe.py
index 21711d39..0608ecd3 100644
--- a/kartothek/io/dask/dataframe.py
+++ b/kartothek/io/dask/dataframe.py
@@ -170,13 +170,30 @@ def update_dataset_from_ddf(
 
     .. note:: This can only be used for datasets with a single table!
 
+    See also, :ref:`partitioning_dask`.
+
     Parameters
     ----------
     ddf: Union[dask.dataframe.DataFrame, None]
         The dask.Dataframe to be used to calculate the new partitions from. If this parameter is `None`, the update pipeline
         will only delete partitions without creating new ones.
     shuffle: bool
-        If True and partition_on is requested, shuffle the data to reduce number of output partitions
+        If `True` and `partition_on` is requested, shuffle the data to reduce number of output partitions.
+
+        See also, :ref:`shuffling`.
+
+        .. warning::
+
+            Dask uses a heuristic to determine how data is shuffled and there are two options, `partd` for local disk shuffling and `tasks` for distributed shuffling using a task graph. If there is no :class:`distributed.Client` in the context and the option is not set explicitly, dask will choose `partd` which may cause data loss when the graph is executed on a distributed cluster.
+
+            Therefore, we recommend to specify the dask shuffle method explicitly, e.g. by using a context manager.
+
+            .. code::
+
+                with dask.config(shuffle='tasks'):
+                    graph = update_dataset_from_ddf(...)
+                graph.compute()
+
     repartition_ratio: Optional[Union[int, float]]
         If provided, repartition the dataframe before calculation starts to ``ceil(ddf.npartitions / repartition_ratio)``
     num_buckets: int
diff --git a/kartothek/serialization/_parquet.py b/kartothek/serialization/_parquet.py
index c38e83d1..568f375f 100644
--- a/kartothek/serialization/_parquet.py
+++ b/kartothek/serialization/_parquet.py
@@ -61,16 +61,32 @@ def _reset_dictionary_columns(table, exclude=None):
     """
     if exclude is None:
         exclude = []
+
     if ARROW_LARGER_EQ_0150:
-        schema = table.schema
-        for i in range(len(schema)):
-            field = schema[i]
-            if pa.types.is_dictionary(field.type):
-                new_field = pa.field(
-                    field.name, field.type.value_type, field.nullable, field.metadata
-                )
-                schema = schema.remove(i).insert(i, new_field)
-        table = table.cast(schema)
+        # https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-8142
+        if len(table) == 0:
+            df = table.to_pandas(date_as_object=True)
+            new_types = {
+                col: df[col].cat.categories.dtype
+                for col in df.select_dtypes("category")
+            }
+            if new_types:
+                df = df.astype(new_types)
+                table = pa.Table.from_pandas(df)
+        else:
+            schema = table.schema
+            for i in range(len(schema)):
+                field = schema[i]
+                if pa.types.is_dictionary(field.type):
+                    new_field = pa.field(
+                        field.name,
+                        field.type.value_type,
+                        field.nullable,
+                        field.metadata,
+                    )
+                    schema = schema.remove(i).insert(i, new_field)
+
+            table = table.cast(schema)
     else:
         for i in range(table.num_columns):
             col = table[i]
diff --git a/tests/serialization/test_parquet.py b/tests/serialization/test_parquet.py
index c9b78a67..da0c78ba 100644
--- a/tests/serialization/test_parquet.py
+++ b/tests/serialization/test_parquet.py
@@ -443,3 +443,17 @@ def test_read_categorical(store):
 
     df = serialiser.restore_dataframe(store, key, categories=["col"])
     assert df.dtypes["col"] == pd.CategoricalDtype(["a"], ordered=False)
+
+
+def test_read_categorical_empty(store):
+
+    df = pd.DataFrame({"col": ["a"]}).astype({"col": "category"}).iloc[:0]
+    serialiser = ParquetSerializer()
+    key = serialiser.store(store, "prefix", df)
+
+    df = serialiser.restore_dataframe(store, key)
+    assert df.dtypes["col"] == "O"
+
+    df = serialiser.restore_dataframe(store, key, categories=["col"])
+
+    assert df.dtypes["col"] == pd.CategoricalDtype([], ordered=False)