diff --git a/capplets/background/ChangeLog b/capplets/background/ChangeLog
index aa5cf790c..2727b8207 100644
--- a/capplets/background/ChangeLog
+++ b/capplets/background/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2005-07-14  Rodney Dawes  <dobey@novell.com>
+
+	* gnome-wp-xml.c (gnome_wp_xml_load_xml): If xmlParseFile returns
+	NULL, then just return, rather than trying to parse the document
+
+	Fixes #310041
+
 2005-07-13  Rodney Dawes  <dobey@novell.com>
 
 	* gnome-wp-info.c (gnome_wp_info_new): Pass the md5sum to the call
diff --git a/capplets/background/gnome-wp-xml.c b/capplets/background/gnome-wp-xml.c
index d2e7d2dca..0b9596523 100644
--- a/capplets/background/gnome-wp-xml.c
+++ b/capplets/background/gnome-wp-xml.c
@@ -106,6 +106,9 @@ static void gnome_wp_xml_load_xml (GnomeWPCapplet * capplet,
 
   wplist = xmlParseFile (filename);
 
+  if (!wplist)
+    return;
+
   root = xmlDocGetRootElement (wplist);
 
   for (list = root->children; list != NULL; list = list->next) {