diff --git a/spacy/errors.py b/spacy/errors.py
index 043859d29..a69a74bb7 100644
--- a/spacy/errors.py
+++ b/spacy/errors.py
@@ -457,6 +457,9 @@ class Errors:
             "issue tracker: http://github.com/explosion/spaCy/issues")
 
     # TODO: fix numbering after merging develop into master
+    E896 = ("There was an error using the static vectors. Ensure that the vectors "
+            "of the vocab are properly initialized, or set 'include_static_vectors' "
+            "to False.")
     E897 = ("Field '{field}' should be a dot-notation string referring to the "
             "relevant section in the config, but found type {type} instead.")
     E898 = ("Can't serialize trainable pipe '{name}': the `model` attribute "
diff --git a/spacy/ml/staticvectors.py b/spacy/ml/staticvectors.py
index f0213a9b8..71d825905 100644
--- a/spacy/ml/staticvectors.py
+++ b/spacy/ml/staticvectors.py
@@ -42,9 +42,13 @@ def forward(
     rows = model.ops.flatten(
         [doc.vocab.vectors.find(keys=doc.to_array(key_attr)) for doc in docs]
     )
+    try:
+        vectors_data = model.ops.gemm(model.ops.as_contig(V[rows]), W, trans2=True)
+    except ValueError:
+        raise RuntimeError(Errors.E896)
     output = Ragged(
-        model.ops.gemm(model.ops.as_contig(V[rows]), W, trans2=True),
-        model.ops.asarray([len(doc) for doc in docs], dtype="i"),
+        vectors_data,
+        model.ops.asarray([len(doc) for doc in docs], dtype="i")
     )
     mask = None
     if is_train:
diff --git a/spacy/training/initialize.py b/spacy/training/initialize.py
index 3d79eb78f..6f9896492 100644
--- a/spacy/training/initialize.py
+++ b/spacy/training/initialize.py
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@ def load_vectors_into_model(
             "with the packaged vectors. Make sure that the vectors package you're "
             "loading is compatible with the current version of spaCy."
         )
-        err = ConfigValidationError.from_error(e, config=None, title=title, desc=desc)
+        err = ConfigValidationError.from_error(e, title=title, desc=desc)
         raise err from None
     nlp.vocab.vectors = vectors_nlp.vocab.vectors
     if add_strings: