diff --git a/scripts/usage_compressed b/scripts/usage_compressed
index fa12e4063..ce672db3b 100644
--- a/scripts/usage_compressed
+++ b/scripts/usage_compressed
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 loc="$1"
 
 test "$loc" || loc=.
+test -x "$loc/usage" || exit 1
 
 echo 'static const char packed_usage[] = '
 "$loc"/usage | bzip2 -9 | od -v -t x1 \