diff --git a/src/shared/components/plots/MultipleCategoryBarPlot.tsx b/src/shared/components/plots/MultipleCategoryBarPlot.tsx
index a7b8a663bac..eb22fafb804 100644
--- a/src/shared/components/plots/MultipleCategoryBarPlot.tsx
+++ b/src/shared/components/plots/MultipleCategoryBarPlot.tsx
@@ -433,7 +433,8 @@ export default class MultipleCategoryBarPlot extends React.Component<
         if (this.data.length > 0) {
             if (
                 this.props.sortByOption === SortByOptions.SortByTotalSum ||
-                (this.props.sortByOption !== '' &&
+                (this.props.sortByOption &&
+                    this.props.sortByOption !== '' &&
                     this.props.sortByOption !== SortByOptions.Alphabetically)
             ) {
                 return getSortedMajorCategories(
@@ -947,6 +948,8 @@ export default class MultipleCategoryBarPlot extends React.Component<
     }
 
     render() {
+        console.log(this.labels);
+        console.log(this.props.sortByOption);
         if (!this.data.length) {
             return <div className={'alert alert-info'}>No data to plot.</div>;
         }
diff --git a/src/shared/components/plots/MultipleCategoryBarPlotUtils.ts b/src/shared/components/plots/MultipleCategoryBarPlotUtils.ts
index ffa8e0b9cc4..7915268fce3 100644
--- a/src/shared/components/plots/MultipleCategoryBarPlotUtils.ts
+++ b/src/shared/components/plots/MultipleCategoryBarPlotUtils.ts
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ export function sortDataByCategory<D>(
 }
 export function getSortedMajorCategories(
     data: IMultipleCategoryBarPlotData[],
-    sortByOption: string | undefined
+    sortByOption: string
 ): string[] {
     if (sortByOption === 'SortByTotalSum') {
         const majorCategoryCounts: { [key: string]: number } = {};