diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 90b50bb7..7c8840ee 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.13 FATAL_ERROR)
 project(sherpa-onnx)
 
-set(SHERPA_ONNX_VERSION "1.7.15")
+set(SHERPA_ONNX_VERSION "1.7.16")
 
 # Disable warning about
 #
diff --git a/sherpa-onnx/csrc/symbol-table.cc b/sherpa-onnx/csrc/symbol-table.cc
index 692783b4..6fb69d9b 100644
--- a/sherpa-onnx/csrc/symbol-table.cc
+++ b/sherpa-onnx/csrc/symbol-table.cc
@@ -46,6 +46,19 @@ void SymbolTable::Init(std::istream &is) {
       }
     }
 
+    // for byte-level BPE
+    // id 0 is blank, id 1 is sos/eos, id 2 is unk
+    if (id >= 3 && id <= 258 && sym.size() == 6 && sym[0] == '<' &&
+        sym[1] == '0' && sym[2] == 'x' && sym[5] == '>') {
+      std::ostringstream os;
+      os << std::hex << (id - 3);
+
+      if (std::string(sym.data() + 3, sym.data() + 5) == os.str()) {
+        uint8_t i = id - 3;
+        sym = std::string(&i, &i + 1);
+      }
+    }
+
     assert(!sym.empty());
     assert(sym2id_.count(sym) == 0);
     assert(id2sym_.count(id) == 0);