Perhaps I'm just confused but imagine this:
```python
hits = []
indexes = [2, 4, 'not a number']
while indexes:
    x = indexes.pop()
    try:
        for y in range(x):
            hits.append(y)
    except TypeError:
        hits = []
        break
print hits
```
That will output:
```
[]
```
even though things are appended to `hits`. Basically, nice things happen until the very end when everything is ruined. 

Is this happening to us here with your code?