diff --git a/R/XcmsExperiment-functions.R b/R/XcmsExperiment-functions.R
index cb6be689..b0906bb8 100644
--- a/R/XcmsExperiment-functions.R
+++ b/R/XcmsExperiment-functions.R
@@ -797,7 +797,7 @@
                                    chromPeakColumns = c("rt", "mz"),
                                    BPPARAM = bpparam()) {
     method <- match.arg(method)
-    if (!chromPeakColumns %in% colnames(.chromPeaks(x)))
+    if (!all(chromPeakColumns %in% colnames(.chromPeaks(x))))
         stop("One or more of the columns in 'chromPeakColumns' are not ",
              "available in the 'chromPeaks' data.")
     pks <- .chromPeaks(x)[, union(c("mz", "mzmin", "mzmax", "rt",
diff --git a/R/XcmsExperiment.R b/R/XcmsExperiment.R
index 69588eb6..487b868c 100644
--- a/R/XcmsExperiment.R
+++ b/R/XcmsExperiment.R
@@ -1782,7 +1782,7 @@ setMethod(
         if (!hasFeatures(object))
             stop("No feature definitions present. Please run ",
                  "'groupChromPeaks' first.")
-        if (!featureColumns %in% colnames(featureDefinitions(object)))
+        if (!all(featureColumns %in% colnames(featureDefinitions(object))))
             stop("One or more of the requested 'featureColumns' are not ",
                  "present in the feature definitions.")
         if (hasAdjustedRtime(object))