diff --git a/paddle/fluid/platform/device/ipu/popart_canonicalization/other_ops.cc b/paddle/fluid/platform/device/ipu/popart_canonicalization/other_ops.cc
index c9ac081f920dab27dc64d42f71342ae4c921c978..74f262be8477a1b515110563ad1b4c4823d74df0 100644
--- a/paddle/fluid/platform/device/ipu/popart_canonicalization/other_ops.cc
+++ b/paddle/fluid/platform/device/ipu/popart_canonicalization/other_ops.cc
@@ -57,14 +57,21 @@ Node *checkpointoutput_handler(Graph *graph, Node *node) {
 Node *custom_nll_loss_handler(Graph *graph, Node *node) {
   auto *op = node->Op();
   auto reduction = BOOST_GET_CONST(int, op->GetAttr("reduction"));
-  auto ignoreIndex = BOOST_GET_CONST(int, op->GetAttr("ignoreIndex"));
+  auto ignoreIndex = BOOST_GET_CONST(std::string, op->GetAttr("ignoreIndex"));
   auto inputIsLogProbability =
       BOOST_GET_CONST(bool, op->GetAttr("inputIsLogProbability"));
-  return CreateBaseOp(graph, node, "popart_nllloss_v2", node->inputs,
-                      node->outputs,
-                      {{"reduction", reduction},
-                       {"ignoreIndex", ignoreIndex},
-                       {"inputIsLogProbability", inputIsLogProbability}});
+  if (ignoreIndex == "None") {
+    return CreateBaseOp(graph, node, "popart_nllloss_v2", node->inputs,
+                        node->outputs,
+                        {{"reduction", reduction},
+                         {"inputIsLogProbability", inputIsLogProbability}});
+  } else {
+    return CreateBaseOp(graph, node, "popart_nllloss_v2", node->inputs,
+                        node->outputs,
+                        {{"reduction", reduction},
+                         {"ignoreIndex", std::atoi(ignoreIndex.c_str())},
+                         {"inputIsLogProbability", inputIsLogProbability}});
+  }
 }
 
 Node *identity_handler(Graph *graph, Node *node) {