diff --git a/ChangeLog.adoc b/ChangeLog.adoc
index cb646c578..24583c6f0 100644
--- a/ChangeLog.adoc
+++ b/ChangeLog.adoc
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ New features::
 
 Bug fixes::
 
+  * core: fix crash when "config_version" is present in a configuration file without a value
   * core: display an error on startup if environment variable "HOME" is not set
   * core: fix crash when a custom bar item name is already used by a default bar item (issue #2034)
   * core: fix random timeouts when a lot of concurrent processes are launched with hook_process (issue #2033)
diff --git a/src/core/wee-config-file.c b/src/core/wee-config-file.c
index 006dd29a7..83fef3b76 100644
--- a/src/core/wee-config-file.c
+++ b/src/core/wee-config-file.c
@@ -3255,6 +3255,9 @@ config_file_parse_version (const char *version)
     long number;
     char *error;
 
+    if (!version)
+        return -1;
+
     number = strtoll (version, &error, 10);
     if (!error || error[0])
         return -1;