diff --git a/CAL/CalibrationCommon/lib/datacontainers/holography_dataset.py b/CAL/CalibrationCommon/lib/datacontainers/holography_dataset.py
index 24e42878cfc84aeabd82eea95ccef175ad80ae23..bfead5057f261b5ae8dc81ed72a06b482e9f52ce 100644
--- a/CAL/CalibrationCommon/lib/datacontainers/holography_dataset.py
+++ b/CAL/CalibrationCommon/lib/datacontainers/holography_dataset.py
@@ -363,8 +363,9 @@ class HolographyDataset():
         result = dict()
 
         # Read the attributes in the hdf5 dataset
-        result['ATTRIBUTES'] = dict()
         for attribute_key, attribute_value in starting_leaf.attrs:
+            if 'ATTRIBUTES' not in result:
+                result['ATTRIBUTES'] = dict()
             result['ATTRIBUTES'][attribute_key] = attribute_value
 
         for key, value in starting_leaf.items():