diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS b/CONTRIBUTORS
index 684d05b1..700c5f71 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTORS
+++ b/CONTRIBUTORS
@@ -962,6 +962,7 @@ Marcus M
 
 Pekka Virtanen <pekka.virtanen@sci.fi>
  for adding language code handling to the subtitling descriptor in 'libsi'
+ for adding missing NULL checks when accessing sectionHandler in device.c
 
 John Kennedy <rkennedy@ix.netcom.com>
  for publishing "A Fast Bresenham Algorithm For Drawing Ellipses" (found at
diff --git a/HISTORY b/HISTORY
index d12d1fcf..1c618bf9 100644
--- a/HISTORY
+++ b/HISTORY
@@ -2797,3 +2797,5 @@ Video Disk Recorder Revision History
   in the list) everything freezes and the vdr processes have to be killed with -9
   and the driver needs to be reloaded. Maybe somebody else can find out what's
   going wrong here...
+- Added missing NULL checks when accessing sectionHandler in device.c (thanks to
+  Pekka Virtanen).
diff --git a/device.c b/device.c
index 9da29579..0c2b76dc 100644
--- a/device.c
+++ b/device.c
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
  * See the main source file 'vdr.c' for copyright information and
  * how to reach the author.
  *
- * $Id: device.c 1.54 2004/04/17 10:07:10 kls Exp $
+ * $Id: device.c 1.55 2004/05/16 12:14:47 kls Exp $
  */
 
 #include "device.h"
@@ -325,12 +325,14 @@ int cDevice::OpenFilter(u_short Pid, u_char Tid, u_char Mask)
 
 void cDevice::AttachFilter(cFilter *Filter)
 {
-  sectionHandler->Attach(Filter);
+  if (sectionHandler)
+     sectionHandler->Attach(Filter);
 }
 
 void cDevice::Detach(cFilter *Filter)
 {
-  sectionHandler->Detach(Filter);
+  if (sectionHandler)
+     sectionHandler->Detach(Filter);
 }
 
 bool cDevice::ProvidesSource(int Source) const