diff --git a/src/calibre/srv/http_response.py b/src/calibre/srv/http_response.py
index 07e7c35744..04e786a098 100644
--- a/src/calibre/srv/http_response.py
+++ b/src/calibre/srv/http_response.py
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ from calibre.utils.monotonic import monotonic
 
 Range = namedtuple('Range', 'start stop size')
 MULTIPART_SEPARATOR = uuid.uuid4().hex.decode('ascii')
+COMPRESSIBLE_TYPES = {'application/json', 'application/javascript', 'application/xml', 'application/oebps-package+xml'}
 
 def header_list_to_file(buf):  # {{{
     buf.append('')
@@ -514,10 +515,14 @@ class HTTPConnection(HTTPRequest):
         if chunk is None:
             self.set_state(WRITE, self.write_chunk, BytesIO(b'0\r\n\r\n'), output, last=True)
         else:
-            if not isinstance(chunk, bytes):
-                chunk = chunk.encode('utf-8')
-            chunk = ('%X\r\n' % len(chunk)).encode('ascii') + chunk + b'\r\n'
-            self.set_state(WRITE, self.write_chunk, BytesIO(chunk), output)
+            if chunk:
+                if not isinstance(chunk, bytes):
+                    chunk = chunk.encode('utf-8')
+                chunk = ('%X\r\n' % len(chunk)).encode('ascii') + chunk + b'\r\n'
+                self.set_state(WRITE, self.write_chunk, BytesIO(chunk), output)
+            else:
+                # Empty chunk, ignore it
+                self.write_iter(output, event)
 
     def write_chunk(self, buf, output, event, last=False):
         if self.write(buf):
@@ -556,7 +561,7 @@ class HTTPConnection(HTTPRequest):
             output = GeneratedOutput(output)
         ct = outheaders.get('Content-Type', '').partition(';')[0]
         compressible = (not ct or ct.startswith('text/') or ct.startswith('image/svg') or
-                        ct in {'application/json', 'application/javascript', 'application/xml'})
+                        ct.partition(';')[0] in COMPRESSIBLE_TYPES)
         compressible = (compressible and request.status_code == httplib.OK and
                         (opts.compress_min_size > -1 and output.content_length >= opts.compress_min_size) and
                         acceptable_encoding(request.inheaders.get('Accept-Encoding', '')) and not is_http1)
diff --git a/src/calibre/srv/tests/http.py b/src/calibre/srv/tests/http.py
index f0dff627a7..379fd76faf 100644
--- a/src/calibre/srv/tests/http.py
+++ b/src/calibre/srv/tests/http.py
@@ -308,9 +308,12 @@ class TestHTTP(BaseTest):
             self.ae(r.read(), b'')
 
             # Test gzip
+            raw = b'a'*20000
+            server.change_handler(lambda conn: raw)
+            conn = server.connect()
             conn.request('GET', '/an_etagged_path', headers={'Accept-Encoding':'gzip'})
             r = conn.getresponse()
-            self.ae(r.status, httplib.OK), self.ae(zlib.decompress(r.read(), 16+zlib.MAX_WBITS), b'an_etagged_path')
+            self.ae(r.status, httplib.OK), self.ae(zlib.decompress(r.read(), 16+zlib.MAX_WBITS), raw)
 
             # Test getting a filesystem file
             for use_sendfile in (True, False):