diff --git a/invokeai/app/services/config.py b/invokeai/app/services/config.py
index c119f2f74c..7b5015a670 100644
--- a/invokeai/app/services/config.py
+++ b/invokeai/app/services/config.py
@@ -414,6 +414,7 @@ class InvokeAIAppConfig(InvokeAISettings):
     outdir              : Path = Field(default='outputs', description='Default folder for output images', category='Paths')
     from_file           : Path = Field(default=None, description='Take command input from the indicated file (command-line client only)', category='Paths')
     use_memory_db       : bool = Field(default=False, description='Use in-memory database for storing image metadata', category='Paths')
+    ignore_missing_core_models : bool = Field(default=False, description='Ignore missing models in models/core/convert')
 
     model               : str = Field(default='stable-diffusion-1.5', description='Initial model name', category='Models')
 
diff --git a/invokeai/backend/install/check_root.py b/invokeai/backend/install/check_root.py
index ded9e66635..cde53f7100 100644
--- a/invokeai/backend/install/check_root.py
+++ b/invokeai/backend/install/check_root.py
@@ -12,16 +12,17 @@ def check_invokeai_root(config: InvokeAIAppConfig):
         assert config.model_conf_path.exists(), f"{config.model_conf_path} not found"
         assert config.db_path.parent.exists(), f"{config.db_path.parent} not found"
         assert config.models_path.exists(), f"{config.models_path} not found"
-        for model in [
-            "CLIP-ViT-bigG-14-laion2B-39B-b160k",
-            "bert-base-uncased",
-            "clip-vit-large-patch14",
-            "sd-vae-ft-mse",
-            "stable-diffusion-2-clip",
-            "stable-diffusion-safety-checker",
-        ]:
-            path = config.models_path / f"core/convert/{model}"
-            assert path.exists(), f"{path} is missing"
+        if not config.ignore_missing_core_models:
+            for model in [
+                "CLIP-ViT-bigG-14-laion2B-39B-b160k",
+                "bert-base-uncased",
+                "clip-vit-large-patch14",
+                "sd-vae-ft-mse",
+                "stable-diffusion-2-clip",
+                "stable-diffusion-safety-checker",
+            ]:
+                path = config.models_path / f"core/convert/{model}"
+                assert path.exists(), f"{path} is missing"
     except Exception as e:
         print()
         print(f"An exception has occurred: {str(e)}")
@@ -32,5 +33,6 @@ def check_invokeai_root(config: InvokeAIAppConfig):
         print(
             '** From the command line, activate the virtual environment and run "invokeai-configure --yes --skip-sd-weights" **'
         )
+        print('** (To skip this check completely, add "--ignore_missing_core_models" to your CLI args. Not recommended.)')
         input("Press any key to continue...")
         sys.exit(0)