diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 4573c1b479..4df33c84f4 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 Changes in version 0.2.0.14-alpha - 2007-12-??
   o Major bugfixes:
+    - Fix a crash on startup if you install Tor 0.2.0.13-alpha fresh
+      without a datadirectory from a previous Tor install. Reported
+      by Zax.
     - Fix a crash when we fetch a descriptor that turns out to be
       unexpected (it used to be in our networkstatus when we started
       fetching it, but it isn't in our current networkstatus), and we
diff --git a/src/or/networkstatus.c b/src/or/networkstatus.c
index a2050f137b..6c1a19a1b6 100644
--- a/src/or/networkstatus.c
+++ b/src/or/networkstatus.c
@@ -127,6 +127,8 @@ router_reload_v2_networkstatus(void)
 
   entries = tor_listdir(filename);
   tor_free(filename);
+  if (!entries) /* dir doesn't exist */
+    return 0;
   SMARTLIST_FOREACH(entries, const char *, fn, {
       char buf[DIGEST_LEN];
       if (strlen(fn) != HEX_DIGEST_LEN ||