diff --git a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_ipynb_converter.py b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_ipynb_converter.py
index b15e77aa2..2dd476112 100644
--- a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_ipynb_converter.py
+++ b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_ipynb_converter.py
@@ -38,6 +38,8 @@ def accepts(
                         "nbformat" in notebook_content
                         and "nbformat_minor" in notebook_content
                     )
+                except (UnicodeDecodeError, ValueError):
+                    return False
                 finally:
                     file_stream.seek(cur_pos)