diff --git a/src/vt/vrt/collection/balance/node_lb_data.cc b/src/vt/vrt/collection/balance/node_lb_data.cc
index 57e11cc64a..6a5cd55182 100644
--- a/src/vt/vrt/collection/balance/node_lb_data.cc
+++ b/src/vt/vrt/collection/balance/node_lb_data.cc
@@ -194,14 +194,17 @@ void NodeLBData::createLBDataFile() {
   using JSONAppender = util::json::Appender<std::ofstream>;
 
   if (not lb_data_writer_) {
-    nlohmann::json node_metadata, metadata;
-    node_metadata["id"] = curRT->physical_node_id;
-    node_metadata["size"] = curRT->physical_node_size;
-    node_metadata["rank"] = curRT->physical_node_rank;
-    node_metadata["num_nodes"] = curRT->physical_num_nodes;
+    nlohmann::json metadata;
+    if (curRT->has_physical_node_info) {
+      nlohmann::json node_metadata;
+      node_metadata["id"] = curRT->physical_node_id;
+      node_metadata["size"] = curRT->physical_node_size;
+      node_metadata["rank"] = curRT->physical_node_rank;
+      node_metadata["num_nodes"] = curRT->physical_num_nodes;
+      metadata["shared_node"] = node_metadata;
+    }
     metadata["type"] = "LBDatafile";
     metadata["rank"] = theContext()->getNode();
-    metadata["shared_node"] = node_metadata;
     lb_data_writer_ = std::make_unique<JSONAppender>(
       "phases", metadata, file_name, compress
     );