diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index feb68be..5213434 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Package: depmap
 Type: Package
 Title: Cancer Dependency Map Data Package
-Version: 1.17.4
+Version: 1.17.5
 Authors@R: c(person(given = "Laurent", family = "Gatto",
                     email = "laurent.gatto@uclouvain.be",
                     comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0002-1520-2268"),
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ Imports:
     AnnotationHub,
     BiocFileCache,
     httr2,
+    curl,
     tibble
 License: Artistic-2.0
 Encoding: UTF-8
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index cee2768..461da59 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ importFrom(BiocFileCache,bfcquery)
 importFrom(BiocFileCache,bfcrpath)
 importFrom(ExperimentHub,ExperimentHub)
 importFrom(ExperimentHub,createHubAccessors)
+importFrom(curl,has_internet)
 importFrom(httr2,req_perform)
 importFrom(httr2,request)
 importFrom(httr2,resp_body_json)
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 5f38cc6..3c53764 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@
 # depmap 1.17
 
+## Changes in version 1.17.5
+
+- Check if there's internet connectivity before creating hub
+  accessors.
+
 ## Changes in version 1.17.4
 
 - Fix .onLoad() to create Hub accessors for all experiments, including
diff --git a/R/loading_functions.R b/R/loading_functions.R
index fb00338..822a901 100644
--- a/R/loading_functions.R
+++ b/R/loading_functions.R
@@ -1,3 +1,16 @@
+##' @importFrom utils read.csv
+##' @importFrom ExperimentHub createHubAccessors
+.createDepMapHubAccessors <- function(pkgname = "depmap") {
+    fls <- dir(system.file("extdata", pkgname),
+               full.names = TRUE, pattern = "metadata")
+    sapply(fls,
+           function(fl) {
+               titles <- read.csv(fl, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)$Title
+               ExperimentHub::createHubAccessors(pkgname, titles)
+           })
+}
+
+
 ##' @importFrom AnnotationHub query
 ##' @importFrom ExperimentHub ExperimentHub
 
@@ -9,7 +22,7 @@ depmap_data_loading <- function(name) {
 }
 
 #' @export
-depmap_rnai <- function() 
+depmap_rnai <- function()
    depmap_data_loading("rnai")
 
 #' @export
diff --git a/R/zzz.R b/R/zzz.R
index 4354388..15f1202 100644
--- a/R/zzz.R
+++ b/R/zzz.R
@@ -1,13 +1,10 @@
-##' @importFrom utils read.csv
-##' @importFrom ExperimentHub createHubAccessors
+##' @importFrom curl has_internet
 .onLoad <- function(libname, pkgname) {
-    fls <- dir(system.file("extdata", package = pkgname),
-               full.names = TRUE, pattern = "metadata")
-    sapply(fls,
-           function(fl) {
-               titles <- read.csv(fl, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)$Title
-               ExperimentHub::createHubAccessors(pkgname, titles)
-           })
+    if (curl::has_internet())
+        .createDepMapHubAccessors()
+    else
+        warning("Not internet connectivity. Unable to create Hub accessors.",
+                call. = FALSE)
 }
 
 .onAttach <- function(libname, pkgname) {