Isn't it just hiding the error?

According to the pull request error description: "The return value of registry_getvaldata can return nil when a RequestError occurs, so you can't always assume it's gonna throw you a string".  Shouldn't check against nil and handle the situation property? I guess check_other will fail later. But handling the error here would provide a more accurate error to the user.

Just asking, if it's the preferred way to handle the situation (initialize to empty string) then it's okey and can be landed.