diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index fb913d6cd..833917f46 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ Documentation for this connector can be found [here](http://docs.confluent.io/cu
 # Criteo fork changes
 
 - Disable all hive related test raising a  `NoClassDefFound Could not initialize class org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.Utilities`. Related issue (https://github.com/criteo-forks/kafka-connect-hdfs/issues/1). To be fixed if we plan to use hive module (not the case currently).
+- Apply unmerged PR https://github.com/confluentinc/kafka-connect-hdfs/pull/684 to solve the rotate Interval that doesn't work for low volume or irregular traffic
 - Force jackson-mapper-asl transitive dependency to 1.9.13
 
 # Development
diff --git a/src/main/java/io/confluent/connect/hdfs/TopicPartitionWriter.java b/src/main/java/io/confluent/connect/hdfs/TopicPartitionWriter.java
index 9bb8b9390..4f0dc5a97 100644
--- a/src/main/java/io/confluent/connect/hdfs/TopicPartitionWriter.java
+++ b/src/main/java/io/confluent/connect/hdfs/TopicPartitionWriter.java
@@ -316,9 +316,9 @@ public boolean recover() {
   private void updateRotationTimers(SinkRecord currentRecord) {
     long now = time.milliseconds();
     // Wallclock-based partitioners should be independent of the record argument.
-    lastRotate = isWallclockBased
+    lastRotate = isWallclockBased || currentRecord == null
                  ? (Long) now
-                 : currentRecord != null ? timestampExtractor.extract(currentRecord) : null;
+                 : timestampExtractor.extract(currentRecord);
     if (log.isDebugEnabled() && rotateIntervalMs > 0) {
       log.debug(
           "Update last rotation timer. Next rotation for {} will be in {}ms",
@@ -600,10 +600,10 @@ private void setState(State state) {
   }
 
   private boolean shouldRotateAndMaybeUpdateTimers(SinkRecord currentRecord, long now) {
-    Long currentTimestamp = null;
-    if (isWallclockBased) {
+    Long currentTimestamp;
+    if (isWallclockBased || currentRecord == null) {
       currentTimestamp = now;
-    } else if (currentRecord != null) {
+    } else {
       currentTimestamp = timestampExtractor.extract(currentRecord);
       lastRotate = lastRotate == null ? currentTimestamp : lastRotate;
     }